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Rebel magistrate resigns over 'immoral victim fee'
Last updated at 16:07pm on 11.04.07A rebel magistrate has resigned in protest at surcharges on fines for offenders and accused the Government of abusing the justice system.
Alan Williams was one of three magistrates in Ely who became the first in the country to refuse to impose the £15 victim surcharge when they sentenced a young man for possession of cannabis.
Mr Williams, a 60-year-old former deputy chairman of the East Cambridgeshire bench, was summoned by magistrates' authorities to explain his conduct yesterday and resigned after saying he would never impose the charge he calls "immoral".
The Home Office has ordered that the surcharge be levied on fines for offences committed since April 1 to fund support services for victims of crime, particularly victims of domestic violence.
Alan Williams resigned in protest at surcharges on fines for offenders
But motorists' groups have called it a stealth tax and legal experts have argued it penalises petty offenders, who often have little money, for the more serious crimes of others.
Mr Williams said: "We are creating a situation where people who are before the courts are going to be convicted for their offence and then penalised in addition for the wrongdoing of other people. I think that is morally wrong.
"Discussions in Parliament made clear that the surcharge should not be a tax on motorists, yet this is effectively what it will be.
"The surcharge relegates the role of magistrates to that of tax-collectors. That is nothing for which I personally submitted myself when I became a magistrate.
"I have absolutely no problem with increasing money for victims of crime but that should come out of general taxation. It should not be imposed arbitrarily on totally unrelated matters.
"The Government is abusing the criminal justice system to raise money for other purposes - however laudable those purposes are."
Mr Williams, a father of five who lives in Burwell, Cambs, suggested that the surcharge will weigh particularly heavily on East Cambridgeshire by penalising the area's many migrant workers and American servicemen.
He said: "Anyone who does not have a UK licence and who is not able to accept a fixed penalty fine will have to pay the surcharge.
"I regard it as discriminatory - it is going to affect foreign nationals disproportionately."
Mr Williams, who is shortly to retire from his job as a regional officer for the National Union of Teachers, spoke with sadness at resigning from his post after an "amicable" meeting with the Chairman of the East Cambridgeshire bench and the Clerk to the Justices.
He said: "It is not a decision I have entered into lightly. But if you feel you are being asked to do something immoral then you have to examine your conscience as to whether you want to continue."
Reader views (2)
One of the basic principles of our justice system is that you get punished for what you've done not what other people have done. Blair, as a lawyer, should know this. But they've stealth-taxed us in every other way they can think of so presumably they thought we'd roll over and accept this one too. Congratulations Mr Williams. But will anyone else take the same moral stand?
- Ian, London, 11/04/2007 18:53
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Well done Alan Williams. There should be more people of principle willing to stand up to the irrational demands of an increasingly detached government machine - itself morally bankrupt and without principles.
- Erwin, Luton, 11/04/2007 16:31
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