Aberdeen sheriff's behaviour towards woman 'entirely inappropriate'

Sheriff Jack Brown has been suspended on full pay since December 2018

A tribunal ruled an Aberdeen sheriff acted "entirely inappropriately" toward a woman who accused him of sexual harassment, the BBC has learned.

However, it concluded that Sheriff Jack Brown's conduct did not meet the test to justify removing him from office.

The woman said the tribunal should have heard evidence from two women who made similar claims against the sheriff.

She has brought judicial review proceedings to quash the tribunal's decision.

Mr Brown has been suspended on full pay since the allegations came to light in 2018.

The judicial review is considering a claim by the woman, known as X, that there has been a "material breach of natural justice".

A virtual hearing of the Court of Session heard arguments from both sides on Monday.

The fitness for judicial office tribunal issued its decision in March, but it has not yet been published.

But BBC Scotland understands that the tribunal found that Mr Brown's behaviour had been "entirely inappropriate" and that he had "failed to respect proper professional boundaries".

Charges dropped

Lawyers for X, a Crown Office employee, want the tribunal's decision to be quashed and have launched the judicial review proceedings.

They say that there was a "real possibility" that the tribunal's decision would have been different if the other women's evidence had been made available to it.

Mr Brown's lawyer said a new tribunal or reconvening the original tribunal would be "double jeopardy" and an "unconscionable outcome."

Mr Brown was arrested and charged in relation to the allegations in January 2019, but prosecutors dropped the case three months later.

He was appointed to the sheriffdom of Aberdeen in 2016.

Mr Brown set up his own legal practice in Dundee in 1996 and has been a sheriff since 2005.

An order granting his anonymity in the judicial review hearing was lifted following a successful challenge by BBC Scotland.

Mr Brown said it would be inappropriate to comment, when approached by the BBC, as the tribunal's report had not been laid before the Scottish Parliament.

Hugged inappropriately

X had alleged inappropriate and unwelcome physical contact towards her, including a claim that he touched her bottom.

The tribunal upheld one allegation, that Mr Brown had hugged X and made a remark towards her.

But it said the other allegations had not been established on the balance of probabilities.

Kenny McBrearty QC, representing X at the judicial review, said she had not had a "fair crack of the whip" during the tribunal.

He said that the tribunal was "not constrained by the initial allegations" and there was "nothing that ties the tribunal to only look at what is in the initiating complaint."

He said the fact that the other women's allegations dated from "many years earlier" did not "render them irrelevant."

Alastair Duncan QC, for Mr Brown, said that X's petition was "no more than an invitation to the court to allow the petitioner to 'have another go' on the entirely speculative basis that a different outcome might be possible.

"If this is to go back whether to a new tribunal or the original tribunal, in effect this is double jeopardy here for this man.

"In my submission that is an unconscionable outcome."

Judge Lord Woolman will make his determination at a later date.