A senior judge was under investigation yesterday after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in court that may have swayed his jury into acquitting a group of protesters. Judge George Bathurst-Norman was said by critics to have persuaded a jury to clear a group of campaigners who smashed up a factory making parts for Israeli warplanes.

Criticising Israeli War Crimes Is Not Anti Semitic

After the historic victory of the EDO Decommissioners earlier this month, the judge in the case, Judge George Bathurst-Norman, has become subject of a concerted campaign of smears and defamation by a number of right-wing columnists, the Zionist Federation, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews on grounds that his summary of the evidence was ‘anti-semitic’. The Office of Judicial Complaints (OJC) has as a result opened an investigation into Judge Bathurst Normans handling of the case. Although we don’t normally find ourselves sticking up for judges, we find the charge of anti-semitism a grossly cynical attempt to undermine the significance of these acquittals of pro-Palestinian activists on evidence of Israeli war crimes that was for the most part agreed by the Crown Prosecution Service. There is nothing anti-semitic in putting agreed evidence of Israeli war crimes to a jury. You can express your concern about this investigation by sending an email to the Office Judicial Complaints, marking your email ‘Bathurst Norman’.  customer@ojc.gsi.gov.uk
A full transcript of the Judges summary of the evidence has been published by the Jewish Chronicle here.