Two magistrates have been issued with formal warnings for misconduct over their interactions with colleagues – with one magistrate’s communication described as ‘[verging] on bullying’.

A complaint was made by two colleagues that at a sitting in September last year Alfred Bean responded in an abrupt manner to advice given to him about the safekeeping of a laptop. He was also alleged to have responded in an ‘aggressive and cynical manner to feedback about the delivery of his opinion relating to a sentencing decision’ which ‘caused upset and fractured the atmosphere’. Bean, as a result, left the court early.

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