A Christian magistrate has been removed from office by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice following numerous comments on same-sex adoption. Richard Page had been a magistrate for 14 years and sat on the family panel of the Kent Central Magistrates Court. In late 2014, Page dissented in a decision on where a child should be placed, stating that he could not agree with his fellow magistrates that placing a child with a same-sex couple was in “the child’s best interest”. Mr Page was reprimanded and forced to attend a re-education training class as there were concerns that he had been influenced by his religious beliefs and not by the evidence before him.
Thereafter, Page was interviewed by the BBC as part of a televised debate on whether Christians were being pushed out of public life. During this show, Mr Page reiterated his views, expressing his “feeling…that it would be better if it was a man and woman who were the adopted parents”. The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office intervened and recommended that Mr Page should be removed from office. It has since been confirmed that Mr Page has been removed from office on the grounds that his comments and prejudice towards same-sex spouses amounted to serious misconduct which brought the magistracy into disrepute. A spokesman for the JCIO said: “The Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice found that Mr Page’s comments on national television would have caused a reasonable person to conclude he was biased and prejudiced against single sex adopters.”
It looks like we have not heard the last of this matter; last week, Kent Online reported that Page has vowed to challenge what he deems a “deeply illiberal and intolerant decision”. Following this, Mr Page has promised to sue Lord Chancellor Michael Gove for “pandering to the new political orthodoxy” and removing him from the bench.
