New revelations by the BBC TV journalist Michael Buchanan today show what appears to be serial bullying and abuse towards women claimants by Judge Philip Lancaster at employment tribunal hearings

His news report today reveals that eight women have now separately come forward to say they were badly treated when they presented their cases before the judge since 2018. They describe their experience before him as “patronising, degrading, psychologically abusive, and misogynistic.”

The 67 year old judge who presides over employment tribunal hearings in Leeds is often rude and abrasive towards women and in one case even suggested that a claimant had mental health problems.

One woman claimant Angela Gates brought a case of disability discrimination and constructive dismissal against her employer in 2021.

She says a hearing in front of Judge Lancaster made her feel “like a villain being prosecuted”.

She says: “I felt I couldn’t give my side on anything.”

The four-day hearing was held on Zoom, and Ms Gates, 53, says Judge Lancaster regularly shouted at her, repeatedly telling her to be quiet. She says his behaviour was “appalling and degrading, verging on psychological abuse”, adding: “I don’t believe I’ve been given a fair trial.”

Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, had similar treatment over a constructive dismissal and unfair treatment case.

“He made my life hell “

She said: He made my life hell,” she recalls. “He’d put his hands on his head, and appeared disinterested in what I was saying. He repeatedly asked why I was asking [my employer’s witnesses] particular questions and raised his voice numerous times. I felt useless.” She is now appealing the ruling.

Seven women are now planning to contact their MPs about their treatment as it is virtually impossible to complain about a judge as the system is rigged against them. You can refer a case to the Judicial Conduct Investigation Office or previously complain to Judge Barry Clarke, President of the Employment Tribunals in England and Wales. Or even to the Senior President of Tribunals, Sir Keith Lindblom. All seem set up to protect judges not complainants. Barry Clarke refused to act and Sir Keith ignored it.

In a letter written by Alison McDermott, a management consultant, who complained about the way Judge Lancaster treated her in her case against Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, to Adam Jones of the Judicial Conduct Investigation Office she says:

“It is simply not tolerable the way this judge has conducted himself, whether it is arbitrarily excluding the public, treating me less favourably, allowing bullying in the courtroom, treating me with hostility and contempt, ignoring evidence, attempting to block evidence, actually blocking exploration of evidence, vilifying me, acting partially, and failing to document procedural matters.

” I urge you, therefore, to conduct a thorough investigation into what went so badly wrong in my case and to exhibit, transparency and accountability – behaviours which the legal profession professes to uphold. I sincerely hope that I and the other key witnesses mentioned in this letter of complaint will be interviewed, as would occur with any other formal complaint or grievance investigation. In my experience as a consultant with over 20 years investigating organisational cultures and problems, it is not washing dirty linen in public that causes a problem but allowing it to fester in plain sight.”

Of course the office had no intention of doing such a thing. Judges, as I reported yesterday, are protected because the notes on the cases are kept private even when they are the only official record of the tribunal hearing. It is impossible to get hold of the evidence that would prove a judge was biased and judge Clarke would not reveal how many complaints he has received.

So this leaves the Lord Chancellor to act but as I reported yesterday it is almost impossible to write to her directly – without officials in the ministry of justice or the judiciary intervening.

I would have thought Shabana Mahmood, a highly successful woman with an ethnic minority background, should ask for an investigation into Judge Lancaster. Many of the women who complained about him are from ethnic minorities as well. None of them should have had to put up with such egregious treatment and does the Lord Chancellor want to preside over system where a judge can treat women as dirt.