In being permitted to resign his office as Justice of
the Peace after the severe strictures passed on his conduct by Mr. Justice Tucker, Mr. Howard E. Steavenson, Chairman of the Gilling East (Yorkshire) Bench, may be considered to have got off rather lightly. The alternative wosid have been for the Lord Chancellor to decline to accept the voluntary resignation and then remove Mr. Steaven- son's name from the Commission of the Peace ; but to be con- strained to resign after 26 years' membership of the Bench and ten years' chairmanship on it is, as the Home Secretary suggested in the House of Commons on Monday, pretty severe punishment. A magistrate who calls a special court at an unusual time in an un- usual place in order to secure an ejectment order against his own groom from one of his own cottages deserves the publicity and obloquy he has received. It would be going too far to suggest that he deserves still more than that. It is reassuring that when a case of this kind comes to light the Home Secretary is so prompt in ordering an authoritative enquiry.
* *
Previous page
