A judge in England is facing criticism after he threatened to put a 14-year-old girl in a jail cell if she ‘cried while her mother gave evidence in court’.
According to a Daily Mail report, Natasha Myers was on trial in front of Judge Stephen John for smuggling phones, sim cards, chargers and a small amount of cannabis to her boyfriend in a prison, when the judge made the shocking threat to her daughter.
The judge had reportedly ordered her daughter to apologise for ‘being rude to him’, however, the cause for the apology is not known.
The judge warned her that if she showed any reaction during her mother’s evidence, she would be arrested. “I don’t care if you’re 14, you’ll go into a cell the same as anybody else,” he said, as per the report.
Meanwhile, Lord Justice Hamblen, one of three Court of Appeal judges, was quoted in a Metro report as saying: “It was not appropriate for the judge to threaten to send a 14-year-old girl to the cells at all, let alone for a mere facial reaction.”
“This is likely to have caused considerable upset [to her mother] and potentially to have handicapped her in the continued giving of her evidence,” he said.
Penelope Gibbs, founder of the Transform Justice charity, said that the judge ‘may have been having a bad week but his treatment of a child who was about to be deprived of her mother was totally unacceptable’.
She also tweeted the shocking exchange that took place in court:
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)