By Ashley Young-
A magistrate was issued with a fixed penalty notice after breaching coronavirus restrictions while having dinner in a restaurant, it has emerged.
Lindsay Dalby, of the Coventry and Warwickshire bench, was formally reprimanded after she was issued with a fixed penalty notice for the breach, the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) said.
The breach was said to be accidental, but no explanation was provided to validate the claim that the breach was in error. In the absence of a publicly stated explanation for the breach, the breach may in fact have been deliberate.
Magistrates, like all members of the public were provided with adequate information about coronavirus restrictions, and ignorance of the law has never been accepted as being tenable.
Magistrates are not legally trained, but are expected to be familiar with basic laws
The JCIO is an independent statutory body that supports the lord chancellor and lord chief justice in their responsibilities for judicial discipline.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, on behalf of Lord Burnett and with the agreement of Dominic Raab, issued the advice last month. ‘In making their decision, they took into consideration that the breach while dining in a restaurant was accidental, that she had reported the matter to her bench chair promptly and that she had apologized for her actions,’ the JCIO said.
Apologizing for legal breaches has no bearing on their severity, calls among Mps for prime minister Boris Johnson to resign for lockdown breaches in Downing Street have dismissed his repeated apologies in the press for the lack of leadership cited in top civil servant, Sue Gray’s report, although the failings in parties being hosted in No 10 were systemic.
Violating coronavirus restrictions at any level was against the grain of the law, and decisively calls for rebuke against all rule breakers.