Woolwich Crown Court, or more accurately the Crown Court at Woolwich, is located at 2 Belmarsh Road,

Thamesmead Thamesmead is an area of south-east London, England, straddling the border between the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley. It is located east of Charing Cross, north-east of Woolwich and west of Erith. It mainly consi ...

is one of twelve

Crown Court The Crown Court is the court of first instance of England and Wales responsible for hearing all Indictable offence, indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals lied to it by the Magistrates' court, magistrates' court ...

centres serving

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

. It is adjacent to both

HM Prison Belmarsh His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is a Category-A men's prison in Thamesmead, south-east London, England. The prison is used in high-profile cases, particularly those concerning national security. Within the prison grounds there is a unique unit ca ...

and Belmarsh

Magistrates' Court A magistrates' court is a lower court where, in several jurisdictions, all criminal proceedings start. Also some civil matters may be dealt with here, such as family proceedings. Courts * Magistrates' court (England and Wales) * Magistrate's Cour ...

. Operational from 1993, it has 12 courtrooms. Woolwich Crown Court was designed as a high-security courtroom and is now the preferred venue for terrorism trials. A tunnel links the court to the maximum-security

. This provides a secure route for bringing defendants in high-profile terrorist cases before the court. Armed police can be deployed to provide security. On 15 January 2007, Woolwich Crown Court began hearing

the trial ''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and pr ...

of the six men accused of attempting the

21 July 2005 London bombings On Thursday, 21 July 2005, four attempted bomb attacks by Islamist extremists disrupted part of London's public transport system as a follow up attack from the 7 July 2005 London bombings that occurred two weeks earlier. The explosions occur ...

on the London transport network. It was also the venue for the trials of those charged with offences from the

2006 transatlantic aircraft plot The 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives, carried aboard airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada, disguised as soft drinks. The plot was discovered by British M ...

and the

Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary The Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary occurred in April 2015, when an underground safe deposit facility in Hatton Garden, London, owned by Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd., was burgled. According to official sources, the total stolen had an esti ...

in 2015.

References

External links

Court information
{{Coord , 51, 29, 48, N, 0, 5, 24, E, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Crown Court buildings Buildings and structures in the Royal Borough of Greenwich Court buildings in London