By Derek Schlennstedt
OF THE 91 years Keith Thomas has lived in Warburton, 55 of those have been dedicated to being a Justice of the Peace.
Last month at the annual dinner of the Royal Victorian Association of Honorary Justices, Mr Thomas was presented with an award to recognise his 55 years of continuous service to the community as a Justice of the Peace.
Appointed to the role in April 1961 Keith was only 36 when he took on the mantle, the minimum age required to apply.
“The police needed a Justice of the Peace, and they asked me, so I made an application,” he said.
“At the time I was only 34 so I had to wait as the minimum age was 35, but when I turned 35 I applied for it and on 28 April 1961 I was appointed as a Justice of the Peace.”
During his time as Justice of the Peace, Mr Thomas has seen the role change dramatically, stating that when he was appointed in the 1960s three Justices of the Peace could sit and form a court and dispense local justice.
On one particular occasion Mr Thomas was even required to form a court on his own, a situation which he said was very unusual and unique.
“It was a very unusual occasion, I’ve never heard of a Justice of the Peace holding their own court before,” he said.
“I went to sit with the magistrate and he told me he had an evidentiary hearing which he wouldn’t be able to attend – ‘Could you take it for me?’ he asked me, so I sat on my own, everyone was there, the police, the stenographers, solicitors, I was very nervous.”
During the 1960s Keith would often sit in local court with Stipendiary Judges until 1970 when the laws changed and Justices of Peace were no longer allowed to sit on the bench in courts.
Of the many roles that Justices of the Peace were required to undertake, regular jobs included signing police warrants which usually took place late at night or early morning.
Many of these warrants were for drug raids; Keith said, it was not widely known just how extensive drugs were 50 years ago.
“The police would often ring me at about four in the morning to do a drug raid, I always had the phone next to the bed at the ready, there was quite the drug problem in the area,” he said.
Though he enjoyed it the role was not without its difficulties and living in a small community, Keith would often be confronted with knowing many of the local people who came before the court.
“It was quite difficult in those circumstances, but you had to put your friendships aside and look at things objectively to determine what was right and what was wrong,” he said.
These days Mr Thomas’s role includes witnessing documents and certifying copies.
While he no longer lives in the area, he makes regular trips to his home there and says he’s been very lucky to be so heavily involved in the fantastic community of Warburton.
“I’ve been very lucky to live in Warburton, it has given us a good living and I’ve tried to give that back to the people who live there,” he said.
