AS a reporter my first question to the court’s ushers in the morning would always be: “Is Bruce in today?”

If the answer was no I knew I would be cursed with a snail-paced magistrates bench dawdling for hours over a simple speeding offence, or if lucky a decent deputy district judge.

But if district judge Bruce Morgan was sitting I was guaranteed a fistful of good stories and classic Bruce-isms. Who else but Judge Morgan could have compared a drunken punch-up to the violent and bloody fall of the Roman Empire?

For Mr Morgan is like the Bren gun of the magistrates courts delivering accurate, rapid-fire justice to the criminals of Worcester and he has been doing it for almost 30 years – seven of them in Worcestershire.

His turn of phrase has earned him the affection of journalists both local and national. And his cool, calm manner in court – even in the face of a tirade of abuse from criminals in the dock – earned him the respect and a little fear from the lags who have faced him.

When one man, whom Mr Morgan had just jailed for 20 weeks, butted the glass divider of the dock and told him he had no soul, the judge simply tutted, shook his head and gave him another week in jail for contempt of court.

So on meeting Judge Morgan I was more than a little nervous to come under the steely gaze of a man who has faced some ghastly yobs and sent them down without remorse.

“Could I just ask that you don’t say where I live,” he said in his purring RP – received pronunciation – lilt as we sat facing each other.

“Some people bear a grudge.” Sat reclining in his chair, well dressed, suit jacket off in his ubiquitous striped waistcoat – the chain of a gold Victorian pocket watch glittering in the light – with his salt and pepper hair parted from the left, he smiled like a kindly grandfather as I shook his hand. Mr Morgan, aged 66, joined the legal profession as an article clerk in Stourbridge in 1963 where he worked his way up and moved to London becoming a deputy district judge 28 years ago. From his first days as a clerk he always wanted to be a district judge and had no desire to rise to a circuit judge.

“You had to think on your feet back then, although the law has become far more complex these days,” he said. He adds that the current sentencing trends – which have seen a rise in community orders rather than jail terms – are appropriate, but that he fears for the quality of justice if more cuts are imposed on the courts and solicitors. “I would be a bit concerned if there was more cost cutting. I think all court agencies are feeling the pressure and defence solicitors especially.”

Aside from the current pressures on the criminal justice system, Mr Morgan has seen changes in the causes of the crime he faces. “In the first two years, I never saw a drug-related crime and now a vast amount of work before me is committed either under the influence of or in the pursuit of drugs. The other change is the increase in violence – against teachers, supermarket staff, hospital staff, police and social security staff.

“In my day there was violence against police, but hardly anywhere else.”

There have also been changes for the better, he adds, especially in what he calls the cancer of domestic violence against women and attitudes towards it.

He says that emotion has never come into his judgements – although he has often felt the pressure of his weighty job.

“I would like to think I have upheld a high level of respect for justice and hope my decisions show that.”

But Mr Morgan is certainly no stony-faced JP of old, saying his toughest challenges have come in the family courts deciding custody in divorce cases or where social services are applying to take vulnerable adults and children into care. “They are the most emotionally draining cases,” he said. “But you do what you think is right based on the evidence before you.”

And he has been no stranger to getting involved at the coal face of the justice system earning a black eye when he tackled a London mugger two years ago.

“I went after the mugger as he had punched the woman and I brought him to the ground and he split my lip.

“Then another man rushed over and said don’t you think you are a bit too old for this sort of thing? So I got up and let him take over.”