Judicial complaints widened
Investigators will consider case management misconduct after challenge
The body that investigates judicial misconduct in England and Wales has agreed to reopen a series of complaints against an employment judge after admitting it got the law wrong. As a result, its ability to consider complaints against judges has been extended to cover case management hearings.
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, a team of officials who support the disciplinary functions of the lady chief justice and the lord chancellor, made the concession to settle a claim for judicial review. It was brought by three women who complained about hearings conducted by Employment Judge Philip Lancaster.
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office had dismissed their complaints last August. But earlier this year, for the first time, a High Court judge granted the women permission to seek judicial review of a decision by the investigations office.
A hearing arranged for next month will no longer go ahead. The investigations office will pay the claimants’ legal costs and publish an agreed statement of reasons.
The statement, which has not yet appeared on its website, notes that Susannah Hickman‑Gray, Alison McDermott and Dr Hinaa Toheed each filed complaints against Lancaster about hearings he had conducted between February 2022 and February 2025. They and others also filed a group complaint last June. Their complaints were dismissed in August.
Referring to those dismissals, the agreed statement continues:
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office accepts that the decision of 4 August 2025 contained statements of the law that were not precise or accurate.
The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office has stated in writing that it agrees with the claimants and accepts that complaints of misconduct may be investigated under the Judicial Conduct Rules 2023, even if the alleged conduct took place in the context of judicial case management, if the complaint is about a judge’s conduct and not the content or substance of his judicial decisions; and that conduct can thus amount to misconduct even if it relates to a judicial decision or judicial case management.
The statements in the decision of 4 August 2025 that allegations cannot be accepted if they “relate to a judicial decision or judicial case management” were accordingly incorrect and did not clearly express the position in law, and are liable to lead to confusion if not withdrawn.
The agreed statement of reasons then deals with the effect of continuing or cumulative incidents of misconduct. In it, the investigations office says its decision last August on Hickman-Gray’s complaint “did not fully engage with the cumulative nature of the complaint”. It “accepts that repeated acts are capable of raising a question of misconduct when viewed cumulatively”.
The investigations office will now consider all aspects of her complaints — even though she had been unable to “provide precise details of when in the day these alleged incidents occurred”.
The office also accepted that the group complaint alleged an accumulating pattern of conduct which amounted to significant new evidence under the Judicial Conduct Rules 2023. That made it possible and appropriate for the group complaint to be reconsidered.
For these reasons, it explained,
The two decisions made last August will be withdrawn;
the totality of complaints in the group complaint will be investigated; and
Hickman-Gray’s complaint will be reopened.
Toheed’s complaint that Lancaster “displayed bias, shouted on multiple occasions, made hostile and inappropriate comments and repeatedly interrupted during cross-examination” was resolved in January when Lancaster was given the least serious disciplinary sanction. In recommending he should receive “formal advice", the president of the employment tribunals took into consideration Lancaster’s “significant personal mitigation, his genuine expression of remorse and his 20-year unblemished conduct record as a judge”.
Commenting at the time, the claimants’ solicitor Emily Soothill, a partner at Deighton Pierce Glyn, said it was “very concerning” that the lady chief justice and the lord chancellor — who accepted that recommendation — had not been told that “numerous complaints of judicial bullying and inappropriate conduct have been raised against this same judge over at least seven years”.
Response
Alison McDermott, one of the three claimants whose case has now been settled, spoke to me yesterday.
McDermott, an HR consultant, said:
I cannot adequately describe the stress of receiving call after call from different women about Judge Lancaster, describing strikingly similar experiences in his courtroom.
Dr Toheed and I warned the president of the employment tribunal system that a serious pattern was emerging. No meaningful action followed, even as further complaints built up.
Now, after four years of raising concerns, the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office has finally accepted that these complaints must be properly investigated — but only after enormous stress, delay and expense, while others may potentially have been exposed to the same conduct in the meantime.
No justice system worthy of public confidence should operate like that.
Toheed added:
As doctors, we are professionally regulated and repeated complaints of a similar nature would inevitably trigger scrutiny and investigation. Instead, repeated complaints concerning Judge Lancaster were allowed to accumulate over years while he continued to hear cases.
We have had to fight simply to have those complaints acknowledged, never mind properly investigated. That is a shocking failure of accountability and, in my view, brings the system into disrepute.
Comment
For years, the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office has tried to protect the public against judicial misconduct while protecting the judges against disaffected court users.
In her independent review of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the bar last year, Baroness Harman KC criticised some of the rules under which the office operates.
She said:
I am concerned that rule 8(c) imposes an unreasonable threshold for complainants who are unable to identify the exact or approximate timings of the alleged misconduct, particularly in the context of a trial that took place over many months.
I am also concerned by the rejection of some of the allegations on the grounds that “case management” is out of scope. Bullying can still take place in the context of case management decisions.
When granting the claimants permission to seek judicial review in January, Mr Justice Johnson said:
It is arguable that although there is a conceptual difference between misconduct and judicial case management, they are not mutually exclusive, such that complaints of misconduct may be investigated under the 2023 rules even if the alleged conduct took place in the context of judicial case management.
That seems to have precipitated the settlement and concessions that have now been discreetly confirmed by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.
This was its position earlier this year:
And this is what it says now:
So complaints about case management can be considered if they raise questions of misconduct. That may not look like much of a change. But allegations of misconduct are the only complaints that the investigations office upholds. Other challenges must go through the normal courts and tribunals appeal system.
Case management is a judicial function. Until now, like every other judicial decision, it has enjoyed immunity from complaints. That has changed for good.
This is indeed a change for good. Practitioners know well how judges can affect the outcome of a case by manipulation of case management hearings and not necessarily in a good way. Litigants in person are particularly vulnerable to judicial bullying and sleight of hand especially when the detailed and sometimes obscure rules governing case management are concerned.
This is absolutely not a slur on the vast majority of the judiciary but it would be foolish to pretend that there are not a few judges who are notorious for their capricious and difficult attitudes. Hopefully the fact that complaints regarding case management hearings will now be admissible will cause at least some of them to moderate their worst excesses.
The grammatical error in the revised statement from the JCO does not inspire confidence. “That does not raise a question of misconduct” should read “that do not raise a question of misconduct”.