Judge quits after hiding own crimes

A JUDGE with three convictions for harassment has quit his post rather than wait for the outcome of an official inquiry into his behaviour.

Lincoln Crawford, who had fought a High Court battle to prevent his convictions becoming public knowledge, can no longer preside over his own courtrooms. He remains free to practise as a barrister.

Crawford has two convictions for breaching a restraining order and harassing his former wife Bronwen Jenkins, who he separated from in 2003, and her boyfriend Dominic Buttimore.

The 62-year-old, whose ambition had been to become Britain's first black High Court judge, had also been sentenced to community service for threatening Mr Buttimore at a barbecue.

A gagging order in 2006 prevented the media reporting the convictions but last year he lost a campaign in the High Court to keep them secret. He was suspended from his role as a recorder - a part-time judge - and as a paid chairman of employment tribunals while the Office for Judicial Complaints investigated. Yesterday he announced he would step down.

He said: "The public must have confidence in the judiciary, and I concluded that continuing to sit in the present circumstances would be inconsistent with that principle." An Office for Judicial Complaints spokesman said it would not pursue the matter further.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw and senior judges have tried to resist public pressure to name judges found guilty of misdemeanour, arguing it would undermine judges' authority.