AC-2025-MAN-000091 - [2025] EWHC 2048 (Admin)

Under Ground 1, the Appellant referred to the character evidence he had placed before the Tribunal. This consisted of fourteen statements from leading and junior barristers, solicitors and a member of staff in the Appellant’s Chambers. Some were people who had known the Appellant for many years and some had only known him since the disciplinary proceedings began.

Several of the statements referred to the positive changes the Appellant had made both in a work and social setting, mentioning, variously, the fact that the Appellant no longer attended any Bar or Circuit social events, the relevant Bar Council courses he had attended and his attempts to understand and moderate his behaviour.

Mr Scamardella KC contended that the real value of this evidence was how it demonstrated the Appellant’s rehabilitation, a factor which the Tribunal would have been bound to reflect in the sanction had they received the evidence in the appropriate way. However, he argued, the Tribunal had wrongly characterised this evidence as “personal mitigation”. This meant that it was afforded limited weight in accordance with paragraph 5.11 of the Sanctions Guidance, which provides as follows:

“Mitigation based on the respondent’s personal circumstances, health, good character/references need to be treated with caution in the context of sexual misconduct, discrimination and harassment. The nature of such misconduct means that serious sanctions are required to protect others and promote standards regardless, in most instances, of the respondent’s own circumstances”.

Indeed, he contended that the Tribunal had almost “entirely disregarded” the evidence. I cannot accept that submission. The Tribunal specifically acknowledged the strong references the Appellant had provided and indicated that they had accepted their contents: see [46] above.

Mr Scamardella KC is right to highlight that the Tribunal bore in mind the need for caution when deciding the weight to be attached to good references given the nature of all the charges: again, see [46] above. However, this was entirely consistent with paragraph 5.11 of the Sanctions Guidance as this evidence amounted, in large part, to statements about the Appellant’s “good character” and “references” about him, within paragraph 5.11: indeed they were described on the Appellant’s appeal bundle index as the “character witness bundle”. Further, the Tribunal clearly afforded them some weight: the Tribunal specifically acknowledged the large number of good references from both men and women as a mitigating factor in both sets of proceedings: see [52] and [59] above.

Nor did the Tribunal ignore those parts of some of the statements which referred to the positive changes the Appellant had made, or the further details Mr Scamardella KC had provided at section 3 of his September 2024 Mitigation Note (where he referred, for example, to the Appellant having undergone alcohol and self-awareness counselling). Indeed, the Tribunal specifically acknowledged the Appellant’s position that he had undertaken “a number of courses some of which he had found particularly challenging” and had “been forced to confront his behaviour”; noted his reliance on “powerful references from colleagues who had known him for a long time and who [had] spoken to him and worked alongside him more recently and who had witnessed the extent to which he had reflected on his behaviour and had changed”; and identified the fact that the Appellant had taken voluntary steps to address his behaviour and his attempts to prevent recurrence as mitigating factors in case 2020/0928: see [45] and [52] above.

The Tribunal also explicitly acknowledged that there had been no reports of misconduct since 2020: see [51] above.

However, in my judgment, notwithstanding these points, the Tribunal was justified in concluding that there remained a risk that the Appellant would repeat the misconduct alleged, particularly if inebriated, for the following reasons.

First, as the Tribunal noted, in the five years from 2015 to 2020 the Appellant had behaved in a similar way towards five different junior members of the Bar: see [51] above.

Second, the Appellant had committed the July 2018 misconduct “just a few months after [his] misconduct towards the male mini-pupil [in October 2017] for which he had apologised and had promised that it would not recur [in January 2018]” and “at a time when the [Appellant] was subject to a disciplinary process in his Chambers and when he knew that he had been reported to the BSB”: [58] and [61] above.

Third, the Appellant had committed the February 2020 misconduct at a time when he “had been sanctioned by his Chambers and by BTAS for his misconduct towards the male pupil in 2017 and he was aware that he was under investigation for his behaviour towards the female mini pupil in 2015”: [51] above.

Fourth, the February 2020 misconduct involved “similarities” in behaviour to the misconduct towards the male pupil in 2017 that were “striking”, namely “offensive and lecherous comments and inappropriate touching whilst in drink”, in circumstances where “in [November] 2018 the Tribunal chairman had warned the [Appellant] not to socialise”: [51] above.

Fifth, the Tribunal was aware that the Appellant had attended the Silks’ party and Mojo bar on 13 February 2020 after seeking an exemption from his Head of Chambers from his undertaking to refrain from attending social functions (while already at the Silks’ party).

Sixth, the Appellant’s character references did not suggest that he had removed himself entirely from work-related social events: on the contrary, two of them specifically spoke of him attending “drinks at several local bars” and “drinks and/or dinner locally” when conducting trials away from home.

For these reasons I do not consider that the way in which the Tribunal assessed the Appellant’s evidence of rehabilitation, or indeed the wider character evidence he advanced, was in any way “wrong”.