Timothy Workman

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Senior District Judge Timothy Workman is a leading British judge, a long-term stipendiary magistrate who currently serves as Senior District Judge and Chief Magistrate for London.

From 1967 to 1969, Workman was a Probation Officer in the Inner London district, before working as a solicitor until 1986, when he was appointed to serve as a Stipendiary Magistrate for the metropolitan district of London. When, in 2000, the Provincial and Metropolitan Stipendiary Benches merged, Workman was made Deputy Senior District Judge[1]. In February 2003, following the retirement of Mrs. Penelope Hewitt CBE, Mr. Workman was appointed by the Lord Chancellor as the Senior District Judge and Chief Magistrate for the London District Bench in the Magistrates Court[2], and was replaced in his rôle of Deputy Senior District Judge by Miss Daphne Wickham a few months later[3].

As Chief Magistrate, Mr. Workman chooses to sit almost exclusively at the historic Bow Street Magistrates' Court, where he handles the vast majority of all Extradition and Terrorism cases which pass through his jurisdiction[4].

Mr. Workman served on the Inner London Probation Committee from 1990, and on the Committee of Magistrates for London (later the Inner London Magistrates' Courts Committee) from 1995, both until 2000. He currently serves on the Sentencing Guidelines Council, the Council of the Magistrates' Association, and the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee for Inner London[5].

In September 2005, he issued an unprecedented arrest warrant for a retired Israeli Army officer, Major General Doron Almog, based on statements of a Palestinian group about actions in the Gaza Strip. The warrant was issued on suspicion of committing a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) by the unjustified destruction of almost 60 refugee houses in 2002. The Israeli stayed on the aircraft instead of getting off at London and being arrested by waiting Metropolitan Police officers from the UK's Anti-Terrorist and War Crimes Unit.

Timothy Workman may have been the target of a Russian intelligence assasination attempt. 83-year-old retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Workman, who lived in Furneux Pelham in Hertfordshire was killed with a shotgun blast on 7 January 2004. News reports indicate that Robert Workman's murder may have been a case of mistaken identity. Judge Timothy Workman rejected the Russian government's extradition request for Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen leader in London because of a "substantial risk" of torture or death. The Kremlin accused Workman of playing "cold war politics". Workman also rejected the Kremlin extradition request for Russian wealthy expatriot Boris Berezovsky.

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