Britain Behaving Badly: 22 Judges, Bosses and Regulators Caught by Their Own Records

22 adjudicated British cases, drawn from the disciplinary registers nobody reads — and the one thing every single defendant forgot.

Britain keeps an extraordinary archive, and almost nobody opens it. The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office publishes, in flat civil-service prose, exactly what its judges and magistrates were found to have done. The Employment Tribunal puts its full judgments online, free, in which some of the driest writers in England quietly take employers apart sentence by sentence. The Traffic Commissioners, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, the Environment Agency, the Financial Conduct Authority, Ofcom and the Charity Commission all do the same. It is the most complete record of institutional self-regard ever assembled by a nation about itself, it is published deliberately, and its readership is roughly nil. Every case below is taken from that record. Not one is a press retelling of an anecdote; each rests on a finding, a judgment, a final notice or a sentence handed down. Nobody here is a defendant in the ordinary sense — no drunks, no unfortunates, nobody who was merely poor and unlucky. To appear on this page you had to hold a position: a bench, a licence, a boardroom, a professional certificate. The blade points up, which is where it belongs. And read together, they say one thing. Every person in this collection was destroyed by a record-keeping system — the machine, the metadata, the printer, the succession notes, the assessment form, the tweet, the tachograph. Not one was caught by a witness. Modernity's characteristic punishment is not surveillance by a watcher; it is that everything now writes itself down, and the confident have not yet noticed.

The Haulier Who Beat the Machine Built to Record Who Was Driving — 2025–2026

Andrew Tucker was sole director, transport manager and driver of TMA Haulage Ltd, near Bath. DVSA intelligence suggested a second tachograph card was being used to evade drivers' hours limits. Analysis of the vehicle unit data identified repeated misuse of a card belonging to a former employee. At a public inquiry in Bristol, Traffic Commissioner Kevin Rooney found Tucker had used the card on three occasions in June and July 2025, and again in April 2026 — that is, after the DVSA investigation had already begun. Tucker first denied the allegations, then admitted driving while the other man's card was in the vehicle unit. The Commissioner held that repeated use of another driver's card was serious and deliberate falsification striking at the heart of the enforcement regime. Tucker lost his good repute, was disqualified indefinitely as a transport manager, and had his LGV entitlement revoked for twelve months; the licence was revoked with effect from 6 October 2026.

The verdict: A tachograph exists for one purpose: to write down who was driving. He defeated it by driving under another man's name, which is not defeating it. It is confessing to it in advance, in writing, at sixty miles an hour.

Source: Traffic Commissioner Kevin Rooney, public inquiry (Bristol); DVSA/GOV.UK news release, 2026

The Judge Who Edited the Confidential Reference Written About Himself — 2024

In early 2024 Mr Justice Picken applied for promotion to the Court of Appeal and nominated two independent assessors to give an evidence-based assessment of his suitability. Judicial Appointments Commission guidance permits a candidate to suggest people the assessor might speak to, but the assessment itself is confidential and must not be shown to the candidate — a rule printed, in the JCIO's words, "prominently and unequivocally" on the form. One nominee then accidentally sent the Commission a partially completed draft carrying extensive comments and suggestions from Picken himself. He told the JCIO that he had not read the confidentiality wording and did not think there was any prohibition on his nominee sharing a draft. The nominated judge found he should have declined to comment and deleted the draft unread, and that his comments "went well beyond simply reminding the assessor of the need for evidence-based examples." On 11 June 2024 he received a formal warning.

The verdict: A High Court judge, whose entire trade is the close reading of documents, explained that he had not read the one sentence on the form that governed him. Self-exemption rarely announces itself. It arrives dressed as an oversight.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 28/24, 11 June 2024

Nationwide Abolished Home Working on the Evidence of Some Coffee Mornings — 2018–2023

Mrs J Follows was a Senior Lending Manager at Nationwide Building Society on a homeworker contract, and the primary carer for her disabled mother. Nationwide needed four redundancies among senior lending managers. Six volunteered and one was persuaded to stay, so the required number was reached before Follows was selected at all. The tribunal found the real reason the process continued with her was that the employer wished to delete homeworking posts. Its stated justification was supervision; the evidence for it, on the manager's own account, was "coffee mornings with junior staff". He accepted she supervised her team properly from home, was highly visible on her office days, and could point to no evidence for the change he claimed. The tribunal concluded Nationwide "was unable to show that its rationale for deleting homeworking posts had any basis in evidence" and that consultation "failed at all to engage" with her. The remedy judgment awarded £345,708.

The verdict: Management by preference, dressed as management by necessity. Senior people decided that office presence would be better, declined to test the belief, and found out at the remedy hearing what an untested belief costs per head.

Source: Mrs J Follows v Nationwide Building Society, Employment Tribunal (London Central), Case No. 2201937/2018; remedy judgment 30 August 2023

The Compliance Officer Who Wrote Minutes of Meetings That Never Took Place — 2019–2025

Jean-Noël Yves Alba co-founded the asset manager H2O AM LLP and served as its Chief Compliance Officer and later Deputy Chief Executive, ultimately responsible for compliance and risk. Responding to FCA information requirements in August, October and November 2019 during the regulator's investigation into H2O's illiquid investments, Alba, in the FCA's words, "oversaw and directed the retrospective creation of multiple records and minutes of governance and oversight committee meetings, many of which had not taken place at all, and provided these false and misleading documents to the Authority". He also supplied due diligence reports which "purported to evidence contemporaneous analysis of initial investment decisions but which had been prepared subsequently, often many months after the Investments had been made". He directed junior Risk and Compliance staff to prepare the material. The FCA found he acted intentionally, or alternatively recklessly. He was fined £1,049,500 and prohibited from any regulated function.

The verdict: The entire value of a contemporaneous record is that it is contemporaneous. A minute written to order months later is not evidence of a meeting; it is documentary proof that no meeting occurred, filed by the man who needed one to have.

Source: Financial Conduct Authority, Final Notice to Mr Jean-Noël Yves Alba, ref. JYA01003, 22 July 2025

Parliament Sacked Its Receptionist for an Offence Nobody in the Building Could Define — 2019–2021

Lita Evans had worked for the House of Commons Commission since 2009, latterly as a Reception and Facilities Co-ordinator. In 2019 a colleague complained that Evans had called her "a failure". Evans denied it. The investigating officer interviewed two witnesses; neither corroborated the words alleged, yet her report stated that both had confirmed them, and a damaging phrase had, the tribunal found, "migrated" out of the complaint letter into the findings. The disciplining officer interviewed nobody, admitted he had not read the employer's twenty-six-page management guidance, and under cross-examination could not say what the charge of "insubordination" meant. He found her guilty of it regardless. Employment Judge Klimov: "This seems a Kafkaesque situation where not only the Claimant did not understand… what she was charged with under the label of 'insubordination', but the disciplining officer… when he decided the Claimant was guilty of insubordinate behaviour, did not know what he was finding her guilty of." The dismissal was unfair, with no reduction in compensation.

The verdict: An institution can execute a twenty-six-page disciplinary procedure immaculately at the level of paperwork while nobody in the building is required to know what the offence is. Process was performed. Adjudication never happened.

Source: Ms L Evans v House of Commons Commission, Employment Tribunal (London Central), Case No. 2203521/2019, reasons 14 June 2021

The Recorder Disqualified From Driving Who Itemised His Mitigation by the Second — 2026

On 7 July 2026 the Lady Chief Justice, with the Lord Chancellor's agreement, issued Recorder John Bowers KC with a formal warning for misconduct. The Guide to Judicial Conduct requires office-holders to show respect for the law and to maintain the reputation and standing of the judiciary. In February, Bowers reported to the JCIO that he had been disqualified from driving for six months after accruing twelve points for four separate offences. The matter was dealt with under the expedited process, which applies where the facts are not in dispute. In his representations Bowers stated that nine of the points were for speeding offences where he was "just above the speed limit", and that the final three were for crossing a red light "by 1.5 seconds", adding that in all the speeding cases he had been following the speed of the surrounding traffic. He said he was profoundly sorry and realised that as a judge he should have been more careful.

The verdict: Four offences and an explanation for each. This is the advocate's reflex outliving the appointment: a man who hears mitigation for a living, discovering that his own comes in degrees over the limit and seconds after the light.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 36/26, 7 July 2026

The Games Studio That Sacked Its Lead Artist Over a Letter Left on the Printer — 2017–2018

McCambridge was lead concept artist at Jagex, developer of a free multiplayer online game with millions of monthly players, with six years' service and an unblemished record. Arriving early one August morning in 2017, he collected his printing and found a document a senior manager had left at the shared printer overnight: a personal letter supporting a visa application for the manager's mother-in-law, which disclosed his salary. McCambridge binned it and mentioned it to three colleagues. Jagex charged him with "unauthorised disclosure or misuse of confidential information", had the same officer investigate, recommend the charge and decide the case, and dismissed him summarily. Another employee facing the identical charge received a first written warning. Employment Judge King found the dismissal unfair and wrongful: "No reasonable employer would class discussion of a colleague's salary internally as gross misconduct." The employer "has sought to apply and interpret contractual clauses to turn a conduct matter into a gross misconduct matter to warrant dismissal… and reacted in an extraordinarily heavy-handed manner."

The verdict: A confidentiality clause used not as a rule but as a search for a hanging offence. The document was abandoned in a corridor by a manager, and the person disciplined was the one who found it there.

Source: Mr J McCambridge v Jagex Ltd, Employment Tribunal (Bury St Edmunds), Case No. 3329021/2017, reserved judgment 17 May 2018

The Transport Manager Who Bought Her Competence Certificate for £195 — 2022–2025

In February 2023 a Transport Manager's Certificate of Professional Competence, purporting to have been issued by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, was submitted for Joanne Louise Hewison. Hewison had failed the examination papers. Louise Froggatt, who had organised and paid for Hewison's training, arranged an "appeal" through her then-partner, an inmate at HMP North Sea Camp, who supplied contact details for a man calling himself "Janusz Janusz". Froggatt paid £195 in cash. The certificate arrived at her home and was forwarded on. The institute's Director of Awarding Services confirmed it had never been issued; the document used the wrong font. Froggatt had also claimed on LinkedIn to have worked as a DVSA auditor for eleven months, which was false. Traffic Commissioner Richard Turfitt found her account lacked credibility and that "these actions were both deliberate and represented part of arrangement to mislead a Traffic Commissioner", adding that "operator licensing is based on trust". She lost her good repute and was disqualified for eight years.

The verdict: She sourced a certificate of professional competence from an anonymous contact obtained through a prison, and then advertised a fabricated post at the regulator on the one public platform the regulator can read at its desk.

Source: Traffic Commissioner for the East of England, decision for Transport Manager Louise Froggatt, published 25 September 2025

The Tribunal Member Whose Old Tweets Collapsed an Eight-Day Hearing on Day Six — 2024

On 1 August 2024 the Senior President of Tribunals, on behalf of the Lady Chief Justice and with the Lord Chancellor's agreement, issued Mr Jeremy Purkis, a non-legal member of the Employment Tribunals in England and Wales, with a formal warning for misconduct. Purkis was sitting on what the JCIO called a "strongly disputed and politically sensitive" case, in which the claimant argued that her dismissal had been unlawful, discriminatory, and due to her religious beliefs. During the hearing the claimant's representative unearthed political tweets by Purkis which called into question his impartiality. He had answered a tweet reading "Only atheists should be allowed to run for office" with "Damn right, you won't catch us killing in the name of our non-god," and had suggested that the collective noun for Conservatives should be a "tumour". Because of the possibility of bias, the panel recused itself after six days of an eight-day hearing, "at significant cost and inconvenience to the parties and the public purse".

The verdict: The belief that an opinion published to the entire world remains private because it was typed at home. A woman claiming religious discrimination drew a tribunal member who had already posted, in public, his view of believers.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 37/24, 1 August 2024

'Retire 2020?' He Typed It Beside the Man's Name, Then Denied Ever Thinking It — 2020–2023

Three employees aged between 62 and 66 were dismissed by Sterling Thermal Technology Ltd. Before the redundancy exercise, the manager had recorded in his succession notes against the first man's name: "Siemens key account, retire 2020?" Asked whether it had occurred to him that dismissing somebody else and then losing that man to retirement would create a difficulty, he said the thought had never crossed his mind; the tribunal found that evidence "not credible", and later "unbelievable". A second claimant was put through a full disciplinary process instead. The panel said it had "so very frequently been unable to follow" the investigator's reasoning, noted "findings made without any evidence", and concluded: "The decision to dismiss was predetermined. The investigation and disciplinary hearing processes were intended to provide window dressing for a decision that had already been made." Unfair dismissal succeeded for two claimants and age discrimination for two. The awards totalled £203,850.50.

The verdict: Succession planning is where age discrimination goes to be written down. The company's error was not the thought — everyone has the thought — but the filing of it, and then the decision to contest the case anyway.

Source: Crowley, Witney and Rolls v Sterling Thermal Technology Ltd, Employment Tribunal (Watford), Case Nos. 3300972/2021 and others; remedy judgment 23 October 2023

The Solicitor Who Backdated a Letter Inside a System That Records Dates — 2023–2026

Joseph Elliott Dawson was a senior personal injury associate at the national firm Leigh Day. Already subject to a performance improvement plan and a final written warning, he missed a court-ordered disclosure deadline. He created a letter bearing the date 26 May 2023 stating that documents for inspection were enclosed, and sent it almost a month later, together with an email asserting that it had already gone out. He told his supervisor that disclosure had taken place on or around 26 May in compliance with the court order. The firm's file metadata showed the document had been modified on 20 June 2023. Dawson maintained that he had saved the letter correctly in May and that "an IT system error must have caused the content to be lost". The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal did not find him a credible witness and found no evidence that the inspection documents had been collated for dispatch in May. His conduct, it held, "represented a significant departure from the standards of integrity, probity and trustworthiness demanded by the reputation of the legal profession". Struck off, with £36,200 in costs.

The verdict: He forged a date inside a document management system whose entire function is to remember dates, in a profession that exists to read documents closely. The file's own memory was the only witness required.

Source: Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ruling of 1 June 2026, as reported by Legal Futures

The Recycler Who Declared Nappies as Clean Plastic, Three Times in One Year — 2019–2026

MV Recycling (UK) Ltd of Lancashire attempted three times during 2019 to export waste abroad under paperwork declaring it to be clean, uncontaminated plastic — "Green List" waste, which crosses borders with minimal control. Environment Agency officers intercepted eleven containers in March 2019, moved from a Kent facility to Felixstowe, and nine further containers loaded that December and bound for Turkey. When inspectors cut open selected bales they found household waste including sanitary products and nappies, along with electrical wiring and circuit boards, tin, paper, card, textiles and wood. The material properly fell to be classified as "Amber List". The company pleaded guilty to all three charges. The Environment Agency said it had "showed complete disregard for legislation protecting the environment and communities, flouting the law and ignoring warnings". On 5 May 2026 Preston Magistrates' Court ordered it to pay £30,400 in fines and costs.

The verdict: The paperwork theory of reality: the conviction that a description on a form governs the contents of a container. It failed the first time because a man with a blade opened the bale. It was then attempted twice more on the same assumption.

Source: Environment Agency, Preston Magistrates' Court, 5 May 2026

The Wildlife Park That Blamed Her for an Otter, Then Sacked Her by WhatsApp — 2022–2023

Morna Gunn worked at Auchingarrich Wildlife Park in Perthshire on a gross wage of £133 a week. In June 2022 a director summoned her to a meeting and, on the director's own account, accused her of releasing an otter without authority and of failing to attend morning meetings. Both accusations were wrong: another member of staff had decided to release the otter, and Gunn held a document confirming her later start time. Days later the director charged her by WhatsApp message with gross misconduct for allowing a former colleague onto private property. No investigation report was prepared and no evidence was given to her. She was dismissed in August 2022; the employer never confirmed the dismissal in writing and never sent the documents it promised. A colleague who witnessed the same episode was dismissed; the colleague who gave the statement against her was promoted to Park Manager. Employment Judge Kemp found the director "had a less than full appreciation of the duties of an employer" and "a tendency to rush to judgment", and that breaches of the ACAS Code were "many, and significant".

The verdict: The small employer's signature folly is speed mistaken for authority — accusation, charge and sentence delivered by messaging app, with the fact-finding treated as an optional module nobody had time for.

Source: Ms M Gunn v Star International Enterprises Ltd t/a Auchingarrich Wildlife Park, Employment Tribunal (Scotland, Dundee), Case No. 4108060/2022, judgment 11 April 2023

The Coroner Removed From Office for Deliberately Minimising the Allegations Against Him — 2022–2023

On 8 February 2023 the Lord Chancellor, with the Lord Chief Justice's agreement, removed Senior Coroner Chinyere Inyama from office for misconduct. Judicial office-holders must inform their judicial leaders — here, the Chief Coroner — of any conduct matter which might affect their position or the reputation and standing of the judiciary. The JCIO received information indicating that Inyama may have misled the Chief Coroner about serious allegations regarding his conduct. After what the JCIO described as an extensive investigation, a disciplinary panel found that he had deliberately minimised the allegations when reporting them to the Chief Coroner's office. Inyama accepted that he had done so. Having considered his mitigation, the panel found he must have known he was obliged to give a full and accurate account, and that by deliberately minimising their seriousness he "knowingly misled the Chief Coroner" — showing "a serious lack of integrity and a profound lack of judgement". Removal is the most severe sanction available.

The verdict: A coroner's whole office is the establishment of what actually happened. The folly is assuming that the duty runs outward only, and stops, politely, at one's own front door.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 27/22, 8 February 2023

The Charity That Raised £4.78 Million and Gave Away Eight and a Half Per Cent — 2016–2024

The Charity Commission's statutory inquiry into Fashion for Relief, published 26 September 2024, examined the charity between April 2016 and July 2022. Income totalled £4.78 million and expenditure £4.58 million, of which £389,173 — 8.5 per cent — was awarded as charitable grants, while £2.75 million, some sixty per cent, went on events and fundraising. The inquiry examined an event held in the charity's name in Cannes in May 2018, at which the charity paid €9,400 for a trustee's three-night junior suite and a further €7,939.75 in additional charges including "spa treatments, room service, and the purchase of cigarettes and hotel products", plus €14,800 to fly artwork. It found that not all of those expenses were reasonable payments from charitable property. A second trustee received £290,572 in consultancy fees entirely unauthorised under the charity's own constitution. No board minutes were kept apart from one meeting held after the inquiry had opened. Three trustees were disqualified for nine, five and four years.

The verdict: The gala mistaken for the charity itself: an apparatus that converts benevolence into hotel invoices and then bills the benevolence for them. Ninety-one pence in every pound never reached the cause it was raised for.

Source: Charity Commission for England and Wales, Charity Inquiry: Fashion for Relief, 26 September 2024

The Magistrate Removed for Acting as Public Spokesman for a Group of Defendants — 2025–2026

On 21 April 2026 the Lord Chancellor, with the Lady Chief Justice's agreement, removed Mr Simon Fawthrop JP of the South London Local Justice Area from office for misconduct. A complaint alleged that Fawthrop had publicly criticised a court judgment and the criminal justice system, and had referred to his status as a magistrate, while acting as spokesperson for a group of defendants; and that he had failed to notify his bench chair of that involvement. He admitted making the public comments but maintained the views were not his own, argued that he had acted in his capacity as a councillor rather than as a magistrate, and described the complaint as politically motivated. A nominated committee member found gross misconduct. Fawthrop exercised his right to a disciplinary panel, which found that his conduct had the cumulative effect of undermining public confidence, that his comments included criticism of the trial judge's impartiality and integrity, and that his councillor defence "demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the obligations of judicial office".

The verdict: The theory of the detachable self — that a man may carry the authority of the bench out into public life while leaving its duties hanging on a peg in the robing room.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 100/25, 21 April 2026

The Golf Club Chairman Who Explained the Real Plan in a Pro Shop, Within Earshot — 2018

Niall Bruce was Course Manager at Montrose Golf Links. In January 2018 the club placed three greenkeeping posts at risk and required the holders to interview for a smaller number of new roles. Bruce was unsuccessful and was dismissed for redundancy that April. Two directors were appointed to hear his appeal; neither was given any briefing, neither regarded it as his role to examine the redundancy process as a whole, and one did not know whether he had the power to reverse the dismissal. The club announced the new Head Greenkeeper before the appeal had concluded. That same month the former chairman who had driven the restructure met a colleague of Bruce's in the professional's shop at Arbroath Golf Club and said: "We were always going to get rid of Niall." The club professional, who had been listening, added: "Yes they were always getting rid of him then." Employment Judge McFatridge declined to dismiss this as "tittle tattle", found "really no evidence whatsoever" of any diminished requirement for the work, and held the club had failed even to establish a potentially fair reason. Award: £21,777.52.

The verdict: A restructure built to remove one man holds together only while everyone who built it stays quiet. Committees are made of people, and people eventually leave on bad terms and go to play golf.

Source: Mr Niall Bruce v Montrose Golf Links Ltd, Employment Tribunal (Scotland, Dundee), Case No. S/4108276/2018, judgment 4 October 2018

The Judge Warned After His Interruptions Were Found to Be Bullying — 2023

On 29 September 2023 the Lord Chief Justice, with the Lord Chancellor's agreement, issued Lord Justice Clive Lewis, a judge of the Court of Appeal, with a formal warning for misconduct. A senior judge nominated to investigate found that Lewis LJ had "behaved in a rude and hostile manner towards counsel in a hearing". Not every allegation was made out, but the nominated judge found that he had "intervened excessively in counsel's submissions, throughout the hearing, in a manner which became increasingly harsh and rude and to the extent that it constituted judicial bullying". Lewis LJ accepted that he had allowed his frustrations to show, reflected that he should have handled matters differently, and offered his sincere apologies at the hearing itself. The Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor accepted the recommendation, taking into account his apology and his commitment to adjust his behaviour. The judicial sanction ladder runs formal advice, formal warning, reprimand, removal; he received the second rung.

The verdict: The conviction that a robe converts impatience into rigour — that the man who cannot be interrupted has thereby demonstrated that he was right all along.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 30/23, 29 September 2023

The Water Company Fined Again for the Sewage It Had Already Been Fined £90 Million For — 2019–2026

At Canterbury Crown Court on 17 July 2026, Southern Water was sentenced for thirteen offences under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016, covering five major incidents and thirty-five further illegal discharges between 2019 and 2021. Untreated sewage entered coastal waters off Margate and Broadstairs from pumping stations, in volumes ranging from 1.6 million to 16 million litres, following preventable equipment failures, poor maintenance of critical pumping equipment, delayed regulatory reporting and inadequate operational oversight. The judge found that in at least one case the company should have identified the fault earlier. The Environment Agency's Lindsay Faulkner said: "Southern Water allowed this repeated pollution to happen. Stronger oversight by the company is needed, and plain to see from their track record." It was fined £7,127,083, with £149,000 in costs. The company had already been fined £90 million in 2021 for 6,971 illegal discharges, and £330,000 in 2024.

The verdict: A corporation treating a record-breaking fine as a line item rather than an instruction. Deterrence deters only organisations already inclined to listen. For the others it is simply a price, and the price was paid.

Source: Environment Agency, Canterbury Crown Court, 17 July 2026

The Chief Executive Who Sacked Him First and Assembled the Investigation Afterwards — 2022–2025

Tanveer Shah was UK Field Sales Manager at Food Hub Ltd. The chief executive and owner concluded from fuel-card records that Shah was not working in the field and was in effect stealing from the company, and summarily dismissed him in September 2022. Shah appealed, and the appeal was allowed. What followed had, in the tribunal's words, "the superficial appearance of fairness": suspension, an investigation, two investigatory interviews, a finding of a case to answer, and a disciplinary hearing before a different manager. The tribunal found that the nominal investigator did not in practice investigate; that the manager who did "was looking only for evidence which supported the allegation"; that the fuel-card data "was not obtained or presented in a fair and complete way"; and that the appointed decision-maker was a probationary employee whose own line manager was preparing and presenting the case against Shah. "Sadly, we have come to the conclusion that the process followed by the Respondent was an exercise in window-dressing." A twenty-five per cent ACAS uplift was applied; total award £61,419.50.

The verdict: Once the owner has announced the answer, every subsequent stage is theatre performed for an audience of one. The tribunal's phrase for a process built backwards from its conclusion carries a twenty-five per cent surcharge.

Source: Mr T Shah v Food Hub Ltd, Employment Tribunal (Birmingham), Case No. 1309075/2022; remedy judgment 18 July 2025

The Broadcaster Fined £375,000 for Selling Cures for Illness and for Debt — 2023–2025

On 9 December 2025 Ofcom imposed financial penalties totalling £375,000 on the licensee of The Word Network. A teleshopping programme broadcast in July 2023 made unsubstantiated claims that unlicensed products could treat serious medical conditions. Episodes of a ministry programme broadcast on five days in December 2023, and again in May 2024, made unsubstantiated claims that a particular product, or contacting the ministry, was effective in treating serious medical conditions or in alleviating financial difficulties. Ofcom concluded that the licensee had failed adequately to protect viewers from harm and that the claims were potentially harmful to vulnerable viewers. The penalty divided as £50,000 for the teleshopping programme and £150,000 and £175,000 respectively for the two later findings. Ofcom stated: "Given the serious and in some cases, repeated and reckless nature of these breaches, Ofcom has imposed financial penalties."

The verdict: To hold a broadcast licence in Britain is to accept, as a headline condition, that you will not sell false medicine on it. The folly is applying for the licence and then selling false medicine on it, repeatedly, in the regulator's own hearing.

Source: Ofcom, 9 December 2025 (press release, read via the Wired-Gov official mirror; ofcom.org.uk refuses automated retrieval)

The Judge, the LinkedIn Like, and the iPhone That He Says Did It — 2024

On 11 June 2024 the Lady Chief Justice, with the Lord Chancellor's agreement, issued Deputy Senior District Judge Tanweer Ikram CBE with a formal warning for misconduct. In February The Times reported that he had "liked" a barrister's LinkedIn post containing inflammatory political content. He referred himself to the JCIO the next day. More than sixty complaints followed, of which forty-three were referred to a nominated judge. Ikram said the like was inadvertent, described the post as "repulsive", and commissioned a technical report which found it "abundantly simple" to trigger a like by double-tapping an image on an iPhone. The nominated judge accepted that the like was not deliberate — but found that he had breached social media guidance by identifying himself as a judge on a publicly accessible platform, producing a perception of bias. The Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice rejected the recommended formal advice as insufficient and imposed a formal warning.

The verdict: The finding is not about the thumb; it is about the profile. A judge who advertises the office on an open platform has already lent that office to whatever his thumb does next.

Source: Judicial Conduct Investigations Office — disciplinary statement 29/24, 11 June 2024

The English have a genius for the passive voice in judgment: it was found that, it is accepted that, the tribunal was unable to follow. Read twenty-two of these in a row and the restraint stops reading as politeness and starts reading as contempt, which is what it is. But the pattern underneath is not national and it is not funny. Every one of these people believed that the record was something that happened to other people. The judge did not read the sentence on the form that governed him. The compliance officer wrote the minutes afterwards. The manager typed the real reason into the succession file. The haulier put the wrong card into the machine whose sole function is to record which card was in it. None of them was stupid. All of them had simply decided, somewhere along the way, that the apparatus of accountability was scenery — a thing constructed for the governing of other men. That is the folly, and it is the oldest one there is. The paperwork does not know who you are. It only knows what you did, and when, and that you were the one at the keyboard.

The Paperwork Always Wins: Britain Behaving Badly