\n<\/p>\n
A judge was wrong to hear a case from his bed via video link while recovering from surgery, the court of appeal has said.<\/p>\n
Richard Clayton KC, sitting as a deputy high court judge, heard an optician\u2019s appeal against a finding of serious misconduct from bed the day after returning from hospital where he had undergone an operation for a ruptured achilles tendon.<\/p>\n
Clayton dismissed Suleman Patel\u2019s appeal against a nine-month suspension imposed by the General Optical Council but Patel took the case to the court of appeal. Patel claimed: \u201cThe general handling of the appeal by [Clayton] \u2026 has not been dealt with to the standard to be expected of the court such that the judgment is not reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a judgment published on Tuesday, and first reported by the news website Legal Futures, Lord Justice Phillips, sitting with Lady Justice Falk, rejected Patel\u2019s appeal but said Clayton should not have heard the case from bed.<\/p>\n
Phillips wrote: \u201cThe deputy judge is to be commended on his willingness to hear a case whilst recovering from injury and his fortitude in doing so in bed, in trying circumstances. However, I consider that, save in exceptional circumstances, such as great urgency or where a matter can only be heard by a specific judge, a judge should only undertake a hearing (and a hearing should only be listed before them) when they have the essential tools to undertake the task properly and professionally\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cAlthough it did not cause any injustice in the present case, in my judgment the deputy judge should not have sat on the present case whilst encumbered by his injury. There was no great urgency and other arrangements could and should have been made. I do not say that a judge should never undertake a hearing whilst in bed or otherwise than at a desk or table, but it should be a last resort, where the matter cannot sensibly be listed before a judge sitting in the conventional way.\u201d<\/p>\n
While hearing the case, Clayton said he was \u201csitting prone in bed, which makes it pretty difficult, I suspect, for me to navigate some of the PDF bundles. I have, however, read all the relevant material \u2026 We will just have to see how we go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later said: \u201cThis has turned out to be far more difficult, I\u2019m afraid, than I had anticipated because I am handicapped by an ability [sic] to write anything down.\u201d However, at several points thereafter the transcript recorded him saying he was taking a \u201cproper note\u201d of what was being said.<\/p>\n
During the hearing, Clayton said the hearing was \u201ctesting my stamina significantly\u201d and at the end apologised \u201cfor the problems at the beginning\u201d. He explained that \u201cit has been quite tricky but not impossible to deal with the hearing largely from a non-sitting position\u201d.<\/p>\n
Clayton said he had been advised he could not stand for eight days after leaving hospital, was taking paracetamol and had \u201ccleared the position with the senior staff at the administrative court\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A judge was wrong to hear a case from his bed via video link while recovering from surgery, the court of appeal has said. Richard Clayton KC, sitting as a deputy high court judge, heard an optician\u2019s appeal against a finding of serious misconduct from bed the day after returning from hospital where he had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[16491,1844,160,11201,675,20905,16055,1589,3038],"class_list":{"0":"post-52317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-bed","9":"tag-case","10":"tag-court","11":"tag-hear","12":"tag-judge","13":"tag-judiciary","14":"tag-recovering","15":"tag-surgery","16":"tag-wrong"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}