Justice for the Judge?

Meet Judge George Bathurst-Norman:



No, sorry, wrong picture.

Here:



Ooops. Sorry, wrong picture.

Here:



On Jul 1, I blogged about an outrageous case of British injustice involving a judge, brought out of retirement, to oversee a trial involving the claim that because Israel supposedly committed "war crimes", demonstrators with impunity could cause 180,000 pounds sterling worth of damage.

I found out he was actually born in Mandate Palestine and that element is still being investigated if it had any influence on his obscene views although his father seems not to have been actually a Mandate official. Melanie Phillips hat-tipped me.

Jonathan Hoffman has been on this in a parallel effort to work for true justice.

And now?

This, excerpted:

A senior judge was under investigation yesterday after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in court that may have swayed his jury into acquitting a group of protesters.

Judge George Bathurst-Norman was said by critics to have persuaded a jury to clear a group of campaigners who smashed up a factory making parts for Israeli warplanes.

Summing up in the criminal damage trial, he compared Israel to the Nazi regime and accused the country of ignoring international law.

The judge added that 'there may be much to be admired' about the chief protester, and that 'in the last war he would probably have received a George Medal'.

The Office for Judicial Complaints, which deals with objections over the conduct of judges and magistrates, confirmed that an inquiry into how Judge Bathurst-Norman handled the trial of five political activists at Hove Crown Court in June is under way.

Its findings will be considered by Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge and Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, who have the final say on any disciplinary action.

A number of complaints are said to have accused the judge not just of anti-Israel rhetoric but specifically of anti-Semitism.

...Describing evidence shown in court, Judge Bathurst-Norman told the jury that he could only describe the 'horrific' events shown as 'scenes which one would rather have hoped to have disappeared with the Nazi regimes of the last war'.

In his summing up, he gave his backing to the evidence of one defendant, Ornella Saibene, a former Greenham Common activist.

The judge said: 'She took us through the horrors, and there really is no other word for it than horrors, that emerged in the press and on the news and the footage as to what the Israelis were doing in Gaza.

'You may think that perhaps "Hell on Earth" would be an understatement of what the Gazans endured.'

...Jonathan Hoffman, of the Zionist Federation, said: 'This opens the door to any group which thinks the British presence in Afghanistan is wrong to go and smash up plants supplying British forces.'

Will true justice win out?

Stay tuned.


(Kippah tip: JH)
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