Probe into how North magistrates fall foul of rules

Dec 4 2011 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

THEY mete out justice to hundreds of criminals on a daily basis, as the supposed pinnacle of our community.

Yet the Sunday Sun can reveal that 49 magistrates in the last two years have themselves been accused of falling foul of the rule book . . . including one who failed to tell bosses they themselves were the subject of a criminal investigation.

Two have been booted out of office, eight resigned – some before internal probes got underway – and 11 others were handed punishments.

Many of those accused of breaking the rules were later completely cleared of any wrongdoing

We used Freedom of Information laws to uncover the figures, by finding out details of all magistrates investigated by the Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC) over the last three years in the local justice areas of Cleveland, Northumbria, North Yorkshire, Durham and Cumbria.

Documents supplied by the Ministry of Justice show 49 investigations have been carried out since 2009 – three of which are still ongoing – with every justice area having to deal with complaints made against the upholders of the law.

Our special probe comes just two months after we exclusively revealed how veteran Sunderland magistrate Jean Brown stepped down from her post while being investigated for allegedly discussing a court case on Facebook.

The magistrate, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, responded to messages posted to her on the social networking site in April, and judicial bosses have confirmed that probe has yet to conclude eight months after Mrs Brown stood down.

Data protection laws prevent the government department from revealing the magistrates’ identities. However, our findings reveal Mrs Brown is far from alone.

Cumbria has seen the most complaints, with the OJC looking into no less than 21 complaints.

Nine complaints were dismissed after being looked at by the advisory committee, who also dealt internally with five other complaints, but four JPs resigned and in one case a magistrate was dismissed from office.

Two complaints were investigated in Northumbria, but the Ministry of Justice would only declare that “the OJC considered the matter” in each case.