Magistrate dialled into court from Portugal home, claims whistleblowing official

A court official who says he was dismissed for whistleblowing about a judge who called from his home in Portugal is suing the Ministry of Justice for unfair dismissal.

Chris John said he was “shocked” to learn that magistrate Phil Taylor was working from his home near the Portuguese capital Lisbon to decide criminal cases at Reading Magistrates’ Court.

The court’s legal counsel raised concerns about Mr Taylor’s unusual work-from-home arrangement, arguing that his decisions for low-level offenses in the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) that day, as well as thousands of other convictions and sentences he oversaw remotely, could be rendered illegal and invalid.

While Mr John took his complaints to Justice Secretary David Lammy and Courts Minister Sarah Sackman, senior judges and officials investigated the matter and concluded that judges should not attend hearings from outside the UK.

But Mr John said he had encountered resistance to the idea of ​​a wider investigation into SJP practices, including the use of MS Teams connections to administer justice and the connection of judges to the court from unknown locations.

She says she was “bullied” and ostracized at work after refusing to attend SJP hearings, which she believed were illegal, and argues that she was eventually fired due to a campaign of “retaliation for my reporting”.

Mr John told the Press Association he had been appointed to work as Mr Taylor’s legal adviser in an online SJP session in July 2024, where the judge revealed he had called from Portugal to rule on the convictions and sentences of more than 100 defendants, an arrangement he said had been going on for “years”.

“I was seriously concerned that Mr Taylor must have undertaken thousands of SJP cases while at home in Portugal, but my employer took no action either to establish the number of cases undertaken or to establish how Mr Taylor was allowed to manage hearings in Portugal,” he said in the employment tribunal case.

“No action was taken by my employer to rectify the mistake made by mistakenly allowing Mr Taylor to reside abroad.”

Mr John said he was “increasingly concerned that my employer was ignoring the law” and said he was trying to put the courts to notice that quotas were being placed on the number of SJP cases that needed to be dealt with each day.

During the pandemic, the law was changed to allow the SJP court session to be held on MS Teams and for the magistrate to appear remotely from home.

But these provisions were withdrawn in 2022 and Mr John argues that courts are continuing to implement remote hearings without a proper legal basis, potentially invalidating thousands of convictions.

Mr John was transferred to Guildford Magistrates’ Court in October 2024 and said a manager named Andrew Przedborski was “glad to be bullied” after they disagreed over the legal basis for remote SJP hearings.

He was suspended after an incident in court in July last year where he intervened in an argument between two teenagers and a police officer, and he believes his eventual dismissal was linked to whistleblowing complaints.

In his complaint to the court, Mr John said police officers detained a violent young defendant and intervened when he saw the boy’s friend heading towards the officers.

“The young man made contact with my arm, continued to move forward, and I pushed him, placing my hand on the side of his neck and my thumb under his chin, to get him away from the officers,” he said.

“I think the teenager hit me in the chest and I tried to carry him to the end of the corridor.

“The juvenile was detained by an adult male who continued to hold him down as he attempted to reach officers on the ground.”

Mr John said he did not face a police investigation for his actions and received a letter of thanks from Surrey Chief Constable Tim De Meyer for stepping in to help officers.

However, he was suspended from his role as legal advisor by the Ministry of Justice and was eventually dismissed on March 13 this year.

He said footage of the incident was illegally shared and later deleted by court staff, which was reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The dismissal was confirmed at a disciplinary hearing, which continued without him despite his request for an adjournment because his mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

Local MP Sir Jeremy Hunt raised questions with Ms Sackman about the SJP system and judges working from home, and Sackman confirmed authorities were investigating a complaint about the judge from Portugal.

In response, he said: “The Senior Speaker’s advice to the judiciary is that judges and magistrates should not participate in court proceedings by live link outside the territory of the United Kingdom.

“This is because states can object that only their own judges can make judicial decisions in their districts.

“While permission may be sought from a foreign state, this will only be considered in the most urgent cases and the most serious cases and will never arise in proceedings in magistrates’ courts.”

A message was sent to courthouse officials to remind them that judges cannot take office from abroad.

But Ms Sackman also insisted: “I have been told that there are no grounds to suggest that any case in which this member of the judiciary is hearing remotely from abroad is unlawful and should therefore be set aside.

“Court decisions are binding until overturned on appeal.”

The Ministry of Justice has previously confirmed that it does not keep records of judges’ whereabouts when they attend SJP hearings remotely.

When contacted about the court case, the ministry said there was no evidence of a widespread problem with judges appearing via live link and reiterated the minister’s words that hearings should not be held abroad but would still apply.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Judges carry out vital work serving the delivery of justice in England and Wales.

“There is clear guidance that they are only expected to participate in court business while in the UK.”

The SJP system has faced constant criticism over the past few years over its confidentiality, with judges deciding cases privately without public or media access.

The system, which deals with around 800,000 low-level crimes each year, has been dubbed “conveyor belt justice” by campaign group Transform Justice over concerns that judges make decisions about convictions and sentences quickly and without properly examining the evidence.

The Ministry of Justice held a consultation last spring on possible changes to the SJP system, including greater transparency, but no conclusions or recommendations have been reached since it ended last May.

The first hearing of Mr John’s court case is scheduled for Thursday.