Until the early 1990s, judicial hearings in Newport were held in the west wing of Newport Civic Centre.[1] However, as the number of court cases in southeast Wales grew, it became necessary to commission a dedicated courthouse for criminal matters. The site chosen was a sloped and landscaped area to the immediate southeast of the Civic Centre.[2] Construction of the new building commenced in 1989. It was designed in the modern style, built in Portland stone at a cost of £10.9 million,[3] and was completed in 1991.[4][5][6]
The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto Faulkner Road. The central bay featured a long flight of steps leading up to a hexagonal porch. The wings, of three bays each, featured a series of piers which supported a concrete roof with was cantilevered forward. The building was laid out to accommodate three courtrooms[7] which were designated for the use by the County Court (civil cases) as well as the Crown Court (criminal cases).[8]
Notable cases included the trial and conviction of Carl Mills, in July 2013, for the murder of three generations of one family,[9][10] the trial and conviction of Andrew McCann, a former member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, in November 2015, for "using threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour",[11] the trial and conviction of Joseph Jeremy and Lewis Aquilina, in March 2022, for the murder of a 26-year-old man during a street robbery,[12][13] and the trial and conviction of Simon Parks, in November 2022, for the murder of his mother-in-law.[14]
