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Magistrate Jails Australian For Calling Him ‘Mate’

QUEENSLAND, Australia, where he Magistrate Matthew McLaughlin has jailed Thomas John Collins for calling him “mate“.

Magistrate McLaughlin did not like being called mat and ordered Collins to call him “sir or your honour’‘. This provided Collins with something of an open goal and he replied: “Okay mate.”

So, she was despatched to the cells to have it sink in that the JP is not his mate.

Local Ipswich City Councillor Paul Tully thinks this is wrong. He says:

“It is getting out of control. Some of these magistrates see themselves as Lord of the Fiefdom.”

He muses, what is “more Australian than calling someone mate”?

This is a rhetorical question and you should not answer, “serving a drink in London” nor “losing at cricket to a vibrant England pace attack and glorious batting” (that’s an Ashes reference for you US readers).

Says Tully:

“It’s probably time for magistrates to understand they have a wide variety of people before them and calling someone mate is a term of endearment. I say to every magistrate – Come on mate, get off your high horse and show some tolerance.”

Was calling the JP “mate” a knee-jerk reaction or, as it appears, a chance to antagonise him?