NSW Magistrate Roger Prowse reprimanded for ‘highly inappropriate remarks’

Roger Prowse told a defendant he was ‘lower than a snake’s duodenum’ and recently launched a scathing attack on three superior judges.

Magistrate Roger Prowse.

A NSW magistrate has been criticised by a supreme court judge for making “inappropriate remarks” after he suggested three superior court judges had not “ever been met with the reality on the ground.

The Australian understands magistrate Roger Prowse has a history of slathering parties with harsh criticism, most recently telling one man he was “lower than a snake’s duodenum”.

Mr Prowse, who has worked across numerous local courts predominantly in regional NSW, had a ruling overturned this week after he attacked former High Court judge Michael Kirby, NSW Court of Appeal judge John Basten, and Supreme Court judge Dina Yehia.

The matter regarded an adjournment request from both the Director of Public Prosecutions and defence lawyers from the Aboriginal Legal Services, after multiple charges against a defendant were dropped.

Mr Prowse denied the request and instead instantly entered a not guilty plea, committed the accused to stand trial, and lambasted a legislative scheme to incentivise early guilty pleas as “altruistic virtue-signalling guff”.

“(That’s) my analysis of the policy underlining the marketing name Early Appropriate Pleas of Guilty,” he said.

“The word early is produced devoid of meaning, taken out the back and pillaged, yet nevertheless it is part of the marketing guff that they go on with.”

He then proceeded to criticise the three judges for failing to “meet with reality on the ground” when it came to matters of procedural issues with which he was familiar.

Taking particular issue with an earlier decision of Justice Basten, he said: “I must say I intellectually fundamentally disagree with Justice Basten in the matter that was delivered yesterday or the day before. I’m sure his honour will probably lose not a wink of sleep over that.”

Magistrate Roger Prowse.

But the Supreme Court last week overturned Mr Prowse’s ruling calling out the magistrate for his “highly inappropriate remarks which had the tendency to disparage judges of this court.”

“The doctrine of ‘stare decisis’ requires judicial officers in lower courts (to) accept the decision of higher courts,” Supreme Court judge David Davies said in his ruling. “Further, to say of judges of this court that he does not think they have ‘ever been met with ­reality on the ground in relation to these sort of matters’, particularly when their decisions had been cited to him, is to bring this court and the system of justice into disrepute.”

Mr Prowse, a distinguished magistrate and the president of the Association of Australian Magistrates, is known for his at times harsh criticism of parties.

He recently told domestic violence defendant Glenn Dirix he was “disgusting, reprehensible, vile, scandalous” and if he had “a choice of speaking with Mr Dirix or picking up dog excreta, I’d go for the dog excreta really because it’s less odious”.

“Odious is a good word actually,” he said “He is odious to the extreme,” he told Port Macquarie local court in December.

“I would’ve preferred go swimming in an open sewer than have to speak with Mr Dirix because at least in an open sewer you know what you’re dealing with as opposed to a scandalous scoundrel like (he) is.”

When Mr Dirix’s lawyer spoke to the maximum penalty for the charge, Mr Prowse interrupted and said: “Only three years, which is woefully inadequate, but luckily … he can get the maximum for the other of two years so he can get up to five.”

Earlier this month, Mr Prowse took aim at a separate man caught driving without a licence, who had the temerity to nickname the magistrate “Prowsey”.

”Not even people I know call me ‘Prowsey’,” Mr Prowse said. ”As soon as you say that, people will think we have some connection or relationship.”

In 2016, Mr Prowse was strongly criticised by the NSW Supreme Court for incorrectly applying the law, after he falsely accused police of contempt of court and then tried to permanently halt proceedings against a man accused of assaulting a child protection worker.