Warning for JP who told drug user he deserved ‘a slap on legs’
Even though parents said it helped turn son’s life around
A MAGISTRATE who told a cannabis user he ‘deserved a good slap on the legs’ was given an official reprimand for threatening violence.
Jeff Collingwood, 70, was hauled before a misconduct panel for warning Jonathon Dyer that ‘things would turn bad’ for him if he returned to court again.
But yesterday Dyer’s parents defended the long- serving magistrate, insisting his stern remarks had caused their son to quit drugs and change his life for the better.
Dyer, 23, was caught with 15g of cannabis, which he claimed he was using to treat his depression, and fined £100 in a hearing in November last year.
Sentencing him at Yeovil magistrates’ court, Justice of the Peace Mr Collingwood said: ‘If you come back to court again on a similar charge I will recognise you and it will turn bad then. You deserve a good slap on the back of the legs.’
His language was described as ‘threatening’ by the UK Cannabis Social Club campaign group which also accused Mr Collingwood of breaching Dyer’s human rights.
But yesterday Dyer’s mother Sue, 56, said: ‘Whatever the magistrate said to him, it’s done the job, because he’s a changed person since the case. He’s got himself a job working at Halfords, he doesn’t do the drugs any more. So maybe saying that is what had the positive impact on him.’
The catering assistant described the formal reprimand handed to Mr Collingwood as ‘ over the top,’ adding: ‘At the end of the day he’s doing his job.’
His father Simon, 51, a decorator, said: ‘ We’re old-school anyway, so that’s just something we grew up with – a rap to the legs or something as punishment.
‘It was just words, it wasn’t a physical attack. It’s just something you take in your stride, I suppose. We just take it as par for the course.
‘I know in today’s society it’s very much against that now, it’s all very PC. If you say the wrong word, people can go a little bit over the top. But it’s something that we heard and we thought, “Oh, fair enough”. It’s not something we would have taken to any extra level.’
In an article on its website, the UK Cannabis Social Club wrote: ‘ It sounds like something you would read in a Dickens or Roald Dahl’s The Twits, when one of the characters has been caught doing something bad. Sadly, this is the threatening language used by magistrate Jeffrey Collingwood ... Quite what having possession of 15g of cannabis (equivalent of £100 street value) deserves needing the kind of threat you hear off a bad British police TV drama for we don’t know, but what followed was like hearing a school headmaster from the 70s.’
An anonymous complainant reported Mr Collingwood to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, which regulates judges.
The organisation said yesterday: ‘The Lord Chancellor and Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb on behalf of the Lord Chief Justice issued Jeff Collingwood JP with a warning for a remark he made to a convicted offender … While accepting that Mr Collingwood did not intend the remark to be taken seriously and that he regretted it, the Lord Chancellor and Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb concluded the remark had the potential to undermine the reputation of the magistracy and amounted to misconduct.’
Mr Collingwood, of North Petherton, Somerset, served as a magistrate for 23 years before his retirement in May.
Yesterday he described the case as ‘water under the bridge’, adding: ‘I believe that what is said in court is best left in court.’
‘It was just words, nothing physical’