HC Deb 09 February 1994 vol 237 c249W
Lady Olga Maitland

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many complaints he has received in his last recorded year over alleged racial bias by(a) Crown court judges, (b) Crown court recorders and (c) Crown court magistrates.

Mr. John M. Taylor

According to the information which is readily available, during 1993 no complaints were received in which a specific allegation of racial bias by individual members of the judiciary or magistracy sitting in the Crown court formed the sole or substantive grounds of complaint (but two such complaints, one against two circuit judges and one against a recorder, initially received in 1992, were dealt with in 1993). This does not include any complaints received in 1993 about proceedings in the Crown court in which imputed or alleged racial prejudice by the courts may have been an element in, or seen as relating to, the grounds of complaint, but which cannot be separately identified or quantified.