The Chief Magistrate said he felt “anxious about my personal safety” after receiving “threatening” antisemitic emails from a man who turned up at his court, a jury has been told.
Richard Kendal, 62, denies stalking Chief Magistrate for England and Wales Paul Goldspring and Sir Andrew McFarlane, the retired president of the Family Division at the Royal Courts of Justice, following a bitter divorce.
A jury at Kingston Crown Court was told Kendal is not fit to stand trial because he suffers from psychosis involving a persistent delusional disorder.
The jury was told its role is not to consider whether Kendal, of Wandsworth, south London, is guilty of the alleged offences but to decide if he did the acts with which he has been charged.
Appearing by video-link, Judge Goldspring told jurors on Wednesday that Kendal sent him “hundreds of emails” from January 2024 to July 2025.
Judge Goldspring, who is based at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, said Kendal believed in “some conspiracy against him in which I appear to have been at the heart”.
He told the court Kendal used private prosecution applications as a “ruse” to contact him.
The judge said emails from Kendal contained “abusive and antisemitic comments about me particularly”, adding they featured “references to the Holocaust, to Auschwitz, to Belsen, to Nazi collaborators”.
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The court heard Kendal, who is Jewish, said in an email that he had placed a QR code in his shop directing people to Holocaust imagery and a suggestion the judge was complicit.
Judge Goldspring said the claims were “frankly disgusting”, adding he found them “deeply disturbing and deeply upsetting”.
The Chief Magistrate added: “He talks repeatedly about me being too gutless to face him.”
Judge Goldspring, who is not Jewish, said “antisemitic language and abuse” caused a “great deal of upset and stress to me in what already is a very stressful role”.
He told jurors: “It doesn’t make it less abhorrent because I’m not Jewish, it doesn’t make it less hurtful because I’m not Jewish.
“He turned up to court on two occasions, his behaviour had become more erratic and threatening in the emails.
“The security at court is not great, you have to leave next to the entrance to the public.
“It made me feel very uncomfortable and anxious about my personal safety, and if he followed me home, my family’s safety.”
The judge said he changed his route home following the emails and contacted court security to warn them about Kendal.
Also appearing by video-link, Sir Andrew, 72, told jurors Kendal was “extremely dissatisfied with the outcome of his divorce proceedings”.
It is alleged that in January 2021, Kendal sent an email referring to Sir Andrew’s heart surgery which said: “Your days are over McFarlane.
“You need to focus before you are made to regret ever waking up off that operating table last July.
“You have a narrow window before I release the hounds.”
Asked about the email, Sir Andrew said: “I was shocked that someone would make such a horrid threat.”
He said he was “struck by the anger” in the emails, adding Kendal had a “sustained and deeply-felt hatred” towards him.
The judge, who was previously a Lord Justice of Appeal of England and Wales, said the emails “worried” him, adding: “I did think about them quite a lot.”
Prosecutor Laura Blackband said in her closing speech that Kendal had acted like a “spoilt child” and judges do not expect “endless abuse and endless threats”.
She added that Kendal had sent “antisemitic slurs and abuse” and it was “no excuse that he was Jewish himself”.
In a police interview on June 3 2021, Kendal was asked if he had sent letters that said “suspend that bastard McFarlane”, “I will destroy you” and “resign before I put you in prison”.
Kendal told police: “I can’t recall sending these.”
Asked whether a signature by a “Richard Kendal” on the letters was his, Kendal said it had a “likeness” to his own signature, adding: “My signature changes all the time. It depends what mood I’m in.”
Speaking during the interview, Kendal told police: “I’m a little weedy guy.
“The only thing I can rely on is to threaten legal action against people who have committed crimes against me.”
Kendal told police his life had been “destroyed” and he used to be a “multi-millionaire”, adding “I am in essence bankrupt” and “Covid had got in the way of therapy”.
Kendal is charged with an offence of stalking involving fear of violence in relation to Sir Andrew between January 2021 and July 2025.
He is also charged with stalking involving fear of violence in relation to Judge Goldspring and an alternative offence of racially aggravated stalking between January 2024 and July 2025.
Kendal is further charged with stalking involving fear of violence in relation to Elizabeth Hardy, Judge Goldspring’s legal adviser and researcher.
Kendal is also accused of breaching a non-molestation order aimed at protecting his ex-wife.
The hearing continues.
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