A district judge has been issued with formal advice for misconduct after she was found to be rude when she excluded a barrister from a hearing.
The barrister, who is not identified by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, complained about district judge Nicola Murphy who he claimed had behaved in a ‘rude, aggressive and bullying manner’. The judge was alleged to have ‘unjustifiably criticised his tone, refused to allow him to clarify his role as counsel, and excluded him from the hearing, leaving his client unrepresented’.
Murphy denied all allegations of rudeness, aggression, bullying or loss of temper. She said her conduct was a ‘direct response to the barrister’s disrespectful and intimidating behaviour’.
A spokesperson for the JCIO said the judge, in her representations, said ‘despite repeated warnings... the barrister continued to challenge the court’s authority, which led her to require his removal from the hearing’. The judge said she was ‘driven by concerns about safety and maintaining proper standards of conduct in court’.
Read more
An investigation, which included reviewing the audio recording of the hearing, found there was confusion about the identities and roles of those present at the start of the hearing after the usher introduced everyone as ‘the parties’.
The judge initially mistook the barrister for his client. The investigation found ‘after the barrister explained that he was acting as his client’s representative, the judge repeatedly criticised his tone’.
The barrister, who was excluded from the hearing which proceeded without him, was ‘not impolite or discourteous’, the investigation found and the judge’s criticisms ‘including the invocation of a zero-tolerance policy were unjustified’.
The investigation found the judge’s conduct was ‘rude’ which was ‘compounded by the barrister being excluded in front of the parties’.
Murphy, who had a previously unblemished record, was issued with formal advice for misconduct by the lady chief justice and the lord chancellor.
