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@Anon; Commented on: 21 March 2018 13:47 GMT:

"....Where I think the court of appeal erred is that after considering the allegations of apparent bias and rightly criticising the judge, they then strayed into whether the judge was actually biased. But the question was whether the bias was apparent, not actual, and the two concepts are different. .."

Possibly. My view is that I agree that they should not have gone further and queried the actual bias but that this is actually the test. Once the level of bias has been identified as real suspicion, then that is tantamount to say actually it was there if addressed at the time, BUT the judgement should not be further investigated for reasons that there will then be a second trial / hearing.

Therefore though the test is retrospective 'constructive' bias on balance of probabilities, actual findings of it will be rare (for example specific passages of favour in an original judgement).

Scruff.