Four years ago, a long-time Toronto justice of the peace was slapped with a seven-day suspension without pay for interfering with a health inspection of a close friend’s restaurant.

Now, Tom Foulds finds himself once again in the crosshairs of the Justices of the Peace Review Council, this time facing allegations of intervening in an assault case where the complainant was his friend-turned-partner.

The public discipline hearing is set for October, but Foulds, who presides at Old City Hall, is looking to put a halt to those proceedings.

He’s filed an application for judicial review in Divisional Court, where he’s asking the judges to quash the decision of the council’s complaints committee to send his case to a discipline hearing. He also wants the court to order that a new complaints committee reconsider the complaint against him.

His grievances with the complaints committee are numerous.

“(The committee) exceeded its jurisdiction by making findings of fact and determinations of judicial misconduct, and did so prior to requesting a response from the applicant,” Foulds, who is representing himself in Divisional Court, argues in a factum recently filed in court.

“The complaint committee failed to fully assess the evidence or consider the applicant’s response in a meaningful way.”

Foulds, appointed in 1999, declined to comment to the Star through a court spokeswoman, who said Foulds is not currently presiding over cases.

Foulds also argues there is an appearance of bias on the part of the committee, saying two of its members previously sat on a different complaints committee that investigated a complaint against him, which was ultimately dismissed. Foulds alleged that the previous committee did not follow certain mandatory procedures in its investigation.

A council spokeswoman said the oversight body will argue that Foulds’ judicial review application should be quashed because it is premature.

After conducting an investigation, which included interviews with a number of witnesses and hiring an external lawyer, the complaints committee decided to send Foulds’ case to discipline in 2016, ruling that his actions could be perceived “as an attempt to abuse the office of justice of the peace.”

The allegations contained in the complaints committee decision, outlined in this story, have not yet been tested before a discipline panel.

The complaint against Foulds dates back to 2014, when Mr. A was charged with assaulting Ms. X. Neither of their names are included in the council’s notice of hearing. Mr. A, whose charges were eventually stayed by the Crown, complained to the review council that Foulds had intervened in his case because Ms. X was Foulds’ partner.

Foulds acknowledged in a response to the complaints committee that he “erred” in his approach to the case, but “vigorously” disputes much of the complaint against him.

The committee said there’s evidence to support the allegation that Foulds signed the information charging Mr. A with assault, without informing the police officer that he was involved with Ms. X and without audio-recording the officer’s attendance before him.

Foulds disputes that every routine attendance must be recorded. He admits in his factum to “mishandling a legal process” by allowing the information to be sworn before him, but that he viewed it as “a routine ministerial procedure, and he was simply a friend of (Ms. X) at that time.”

The JP then went to the Crown attorney’s office to talk about the case, but only near the end of his conversation with Crown attorney Michael Callaghan did he say that he knew the complainant and that the case should not be scheduled in front of him, according to the complaints committee.

“The committee notes that Mr. Callaghan’s perception was that His Worship was vague with respect to how he knew the complainant,” says the committee. “The evidence indicates that as he was leaving, he asked, ‘Oh, by the way, do you think it’s a problem that the information was sworn in front of me?’”

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The committee said the Crown then had a new information sworn before a different JP. Callaghan, who became widely known for prosecuting ex-radio host Jian Ghomeshi on sexual assault charges last year, declined to comment to the Star.

Foulds says in his factum that he went to the Crown’s office to address the fact that the information was sworn before him, and that by that time, “the nature of (his) relationship with (Ms. X) had progressed beyond friendship.”

The committee said there’s evidence that Foulds reached out to Callaghan several other times, including to ask for an update on the case and seeking legal advice, but that Callaghan found the encounters inappropriate and declined to provide any information.

In his factum, Foulds also acknowledged his “mistake” in signing a subpoena to have Ms. X attend court and then discussing whether he could be present when she was served.

“(Foulds) provided the context in which he made these decisions, regarding the desperate state of (Ms. X’s) mental health, and his concern about protecting her from self-harm,” he said in his factum.

He argued he never sought to interfere in the case or direct Crown attorneys on what to do.

“The evidence shows that His Worship did not distance himself from the (Mr. A) case and instead actively inserted himself into the criminal process,” said the complaints committee.

“Further, the evidence suggests that His Worship’s involvement in the criminal case was calculated and deceptive. Specifically, His Worship only shared limited information at different stages to make it appear as though he was being up front when, in fact, he was not being completely honest or forthcoming.”

The committee said the Crown had to deal with a number of disclosure requests from Mr. A’s lawyer, who wanted Foulds’ personal emails in order “to get to the true story of” whether there was indeed a personal relationship between Foulds and Ms. X.

One Crown told the committee that Foulds was a “hindrance to the carriage of the case,” while Callaghan said that “for a very simple case, this became very complicated.”

The complaints committee said the evidence suggests that the costs of Mr. A’s defence “escalated and the Crown’s resources were overtaxed directly as a result of His Worship’s involvement in the proceedings.”