A MAGISTRATE who said a cannabis crook "deserved a good slap" has been criticised by justice bosses.

JP Jeff Collingwood warned drug user Jonathon Dyer, of Ilton, that "things would turn bad" for him if he wound up in court again.

And he said Dyer, 23, who was caught in a car with a small amount of 'skunk', "deserved a good slap on the back of the legs".

But Somerset-based Mr Collingwood, a magistrate of 24 years, has now been handed a formal warning over the comments.

Senior judges said the remarks "had the potential to undermine the reputation of the magistracy" and amounted to "misconduct".


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The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office confirmed: "The Lord Chancellor and Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb on behalf of the Lord Chief Justice have issued Jeff Collingwood JP with a warning for a remark he made to a convicted offender.

"While accepting that Mr Collingwood did not intend the remark to be taken seriously and that he regretted it, the Lord Chancellor and Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb concluded that the remark had the potential to undermine the reputation of the magistracy and therefore amounted to misconduct."

Dyer was handed a £100 fine. He told the court he was using cannabis to self-medicate for depression.

A spokesman for the UK cannabis social club said: "It was like hearing a school headmaster from the 1970s."