A MAGISTRATE from Oldbury-on-Severn has said he is ‘delighted’ to have been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Malcolm Richardson, a magistrate in North Avon and then South Gloucestershire for more than 25 years, and former national chairman of the Magistrates' Association, has been recognised in the honours list for ‘services to the administration of justice’.

Malcolm’s career has also seen him serve as bench chairman from 2003-2005, as well as found the Family Justice Council and represent the magistracy on a number of national bodies, including the Leveson Review into Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings.

Having been a member of the Magistrates Association since his appointment as a magistrate, he chaired the association’s family court committee for four years, served as a trustee from the establishment of the Board until the end of 2007, was re-elected in 2009 and elected deputy chairman of the Association in July 2010.

He was elected as the first chairman to have come to the role via an election in which every member could vote in November 2015, having been the driving force behind the governance changes that enabled that to happen, and held this post until November 2017.

Malcolm said he was ‘delighted and very proud’ to receive the honour, having found his time as a magistrate ‘hugely rewarding’.

“I am very pleased that my contribution has been recognised in this way,” he said, “but this honour is also a recognition of the contribution that all magistrates make to their local communities and to the justice system and I would like to thank my colleagues on the bench and at the Magistrates Association for the support that they have given me in nearly thirty years as a magistrate.

“When I joined the bench in 1989 there were enough courthouses that we could truly talk about ‘local’ justice: Thornbury, Yate, Gloucester, Stroud, Cirencester, Tewkesbury, Wells, Frome, Bridgewater to name just some of the local ones - all now gone.

“Not only does this mean that justice is more remote from the community it is intended to serve, but it makes the sort of voluntary service I have been able to give all the more challenging for others to take up - and the magistracy needs to be more reflective of all parts of the community, not less.”

Malcolm continues to run his international management consultancy practice, founded in 1994 when he had completed 25 years employment with IBM. Malcolm and his wife, Judith, have been married for over 40 years and have one son.