Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
I was out of line, but I’ll fight sacking says judge
Barrister accepts online rant against ‘donkeys’ was reckless
A judge sacked for going online to comment on stories about his own cases has admitted being reckless but says his punishment was too severe.
Jason Dunn-shaw, who sat as a part-time judge at Canterbury Crown Court, is appealing against his dismissal from the judiciary on the grounds that it is “disproportionate” and marked by “procedural deficiencies”.
Last week we revealed that Mr Dunn-shaw had been removed after he described his critics as “donkeys” and “trolls”, accused them of being “narrow-minded and bigoted” and complained “lots of warty fingers at work here”.
Our story was followed on national media including Radio 4’s Today programme and he told presenter John Humphrys: “I think the sacking is wholly disproportionate and frankly unfair.
“However, I absolutely agree that I was reckless and now I understand the position a repri- mand or formal warning would have been appropriate.”
The comments at the centre of the furore – made under the pseudonym “Querelle” – had appeared on Kentonline beneath reports of a case in which he had sat as judge and another in which he had represented a family subsequently convicted of fraud.
He claimed that there were inconsistencies in the oversight of judges’ work, citing a case in which a judge had called a defendant a “c***”.
“When a judge drops the ‘ c- bomb’ in open court and doesn’t even merit a reprimand and then to proceed against me with this extreme investigation is unfair,” Mr Dunn-shaw said.
“But what has not become plain is that the comments were not made about the cases, but were in response to posts made by others.”
Mr Humphrys told him this was a “distinction without a difference”.
Mr Dunn-shaw added that he felt his comments were “justified” after visitors to Kentonline had described his client Margaret Rigby as an “evil witch” and a “disgusting old broad”.
In 2015 Rigby, her daughter and her son-in-law were convicted by a jury at Canterbury of defrauding elderly dementia sufferer Barbara Lewis out of £57,000.
Abusive comments under the username “Querelle” appeared beneath a Kentonline report of the trial.
Mrs Lewis’s son Nick then complained to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO), believing that only Mr DunnShaw could have written them since they showed such intimate knowledge of the case.
Mr Lewis said: “The JCIO took a long time to investigate, but at least they arrived at the right decision.”
In its disciplinary statement, the JCIO said: “The Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice concluded that this behaviour fell below the standard expected of a judicial office holder and have removed Mr Dunn-shaw from judicial office.”
Mr Dunn-shaw, however, continues to maintain he was hard done by.
He told Radio 4: “I am appealing to the Ombudsman because there were procedural deficiencies and various matters which were taken into account that shouldn’t have been and matters which they failed to take into account.”