Judge Mary-Jane Mowat concerns me. I have done a quick trawl of the interweb and found a couple of cases where she passed dubious judgements and seemed to have made ill-advised comments:
In September 2008, while sentencing a man to four years imprisonment, of which he would only have to serve two, "if he behaved himself" she said, ?This was a classic case of an adult grooming and seducing a girl over a number of months. She was eight and nine years? old when it occurred. This was a case of genuine affection and attention to the child. It may well be he cannot help the way he was made. The important thing is self control.?
That same month, she also found that a former headteacher accused of having 8000 indecent images of children on his computer was not guilty of any offences. As reported in The Telegraph at the time, "she said his case was 'wholly exceptional' because it was clear the pills he was taking had caused his hypersexuality. She went on to reject a prosecution appeal that Carmichael should at least be put under supervision before leaving court. Judge Mowat said: 'To say that he was to blame would be a complete denial of the reality of the evidence that I see.' She added that she did not consider Carmichael was at risk of re-offending or that it was necessary to ban him from working with children as his medical condition prevented him from doing so."