A CONTROVERSIAL judge fired a parting shot at his critics as he stepped down, claimed they had shown a ‘profound ignorance of the facts’.

Judge Julian Hall, the resident judge at Oxford Crown Court, has courted national controversy for some sentences during his eight years in the job.

In 2007 he told a paedophile that £250 compensation would buy his six-year-old victim “a nice new bicycle” – while some sex and violent crime sentences have been increased by more senior judges.

Judge Hall told his leaving party this week: “I’ve tried to be positive and constructive in passing my sentences.

“It has sometimes attracted the attention of the Attorney General and the Court of Appeal – but at the moment I’m on a winning streak – and it has got me into trouble with the Press.”

The Oxford resident said the worst criticism was from Internet commentators whose “keyboards are steeped in vitriol”, adding to attacks from news-papers and ‘experts’.

He said they “feel free to pass severe comments in profound ignorance of the facts”.

The 71-year-old, a judge for 24 years, said: “You’ve got to make up your own mind, and sentencing has become increasingly directive and prescriptive.

“I hope with more directive sentencing we don’t produce judges who feel they cannot think for themselves. It would be a sad day if a judge’s first reaction is to reach for the (sentencing) guidelines.”

Judge Anthony King said his colleague was ‘renowned for his fairness and his humanity’.

He said: “Above all, he’s always been his own man, never afraid to go out on a limb to do what he knew would be justice.”

One barrister, who declined to be named, praised Judge Hall as “the most humane judge we’ve had”.

The former Eton pupil, known to colleagues as ‘the headmaster’, grew up in Boarstall, near Thame, and won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford.

The keen flautist confessed to Monday’s party that a 1958 rowing club dinner had got out of hand and ended with college windows being smashed. A photo of him peering through one of the panes was later sent to Judge Hall by a fellow judge annotated with the words: “Sentenced anyone for criminal damage lately?”

Judge Hall’s replacement is 65-year-old Gordon Risius, who currently sits at Reading Crown Court. He starts on October 5.

Sentences passed by Judge Hall that made the headlines included: October 2007: The Court of Appeal doubles the two-year sentence given by Judge Hall to child rapist Keith Fenn after an outcry by campaign group Phoenix Chief Advocates. The result was reported by the Mail as a triumph for justice.

May 2008: The Court of Appeal backs Judge Hall’s decision to give a paedophile a three-year supervision order, rather than jailing him. Callum Witheridge, 18, molested a girl and young boy.

October 2008: Victims’ campaigner Sara Payne says Judge Hall’s sentencing of Witney paedophile Colin Lyons, 19, is “unduly lenient in the extreme”. He was given a three-year community order.

February 2009: Judge Hall lets a female teacher who admitted two counts of sexual activity with a 15-year-old boy walk free, after saying he was not sure she harmed him. Catherine Armstrong, 33, receives a 12-month suspended prison sentence after the teenager, who has learning difficulties, asks Judge Hall to “be nice to her” during sentencing.

December 2009: Judge Hall’s sentencing of violent robber John Shirley, 24, is increased by a senior judge. Shirley was jailed for six-and-a-half years for a violent crime spree which included pistol-whipping a shopkeeper and bursting into a couple’s home with a meat cleaver. Lord Justice Hughes increased it to nine years.