A tribunal judge has been issued with formal advice for misconduct after she helped a duty solicitor who had been declined re-entry to the court to get back into the building through an alternative entrance.
In May 2024, tribunal judge Jenna McKinney held appointments as a magistrate and a tribunal judge. She has since retired from the magistracy.
According to a Judicial Conduct Investigations Office statement, McKinney accepted that in May 2024, while sitting as a magistrate, she enabled a duty solicitor who had been declined re-entry to the court for failing to comply with security checks, to get back in through an alternative entrance.
A spokesperson for the office said: ‘This led to a dispute between the solicitor and security staff, resulting in the solicitor having to be restrained.’
McKinney said when the solicitor was refused re-entry to the court, ‘she felt that the bench had to decide how to deal with the situation’. ‘Her aim was solely to ensure that a case involving several parties who were due to be represented by the solicitor was able to proceed. She accepted with hindsight that her actions were inappropriate and apologised for them,’ the JCIO said.
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It added: ‘The guide to judicial conduct states that judicial office-holders should strive to ensure that their conduct, both in and out of court, maintains and enhances the confidence, of the legal profession and litigants, court staff and colleagues in their personal impartiality and that of the judiciary. Judges must also comply with court security policies.’
An investigation found McKinney’s actions amounted to misconduct, concluding that McKinney apologised for her actions, had not been assisted by others present at the time and was ‘motivated by a desire to ensure that the hearing went ahead’.
The JCIO said: ‘She engaged fully with the investigation process and had a previously unblemished disciplinary record.’
The senior president of tribunals, on behalf of the lady chief justice, and with the lord chancellor’s agreement issued McKinney of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber with formal advice for misconduct.
The court is not named in the disciplinary statement but in May 2024 the Gazette reported an incident at Stratford Magistrates' in which duty solicitor Dele Johnson said he had been pinned down by ‘four or five’ court security staff. Johnson made a police complaint. The incident led to an open letter to HMCTS from the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association demanding ‘the immediate suspension from duty of all the security officers involved in the incident pending a full, independent investigation into the facts’.
