Judges accused of cover-up over Cherie Blair case

The watchdog for judges has been accused of covering up findings of an inquiry into Cherie Blair after she spared a violent criminal jail because he was religious.

Mrs Blair, who sits as Cherie Booth QC, told Shamso Miah, accused of breaking a man's jaw in a row at a bank, he would not go to prison "based on the fact you are a religious person".

After a complaint from the National Secular Society, the Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC) launched an investigation but concluded Mrs Blair had not committed misconduct and no disciplinary action was necessary.

But in a letter to the society, a caseworker from the OJC is claimed to have said the complaint had been "partially substantiated" and Mrs Blair would get "informal advice from a senior judge".

The society said the OJC refused to release the full findings to the public. Keith Porteous Wood, the society's executive director, said: "This has the feeling of a cover-up."

The OJC said such advice was not a formal sanction and it was not obliged to make the advice public.