A former chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) inappropriately initiated sexual contact with an aspiring lawyer, a disciplinary tribunal has found.
A five-person panel found three charges of professional misconduct to be proven against Navjot “Jo” Sidhu, who was once a contender to be the director of public prosecutions.
Sidhu, 58, chaired the CBA when it launched its 2022 strike over pay, and was a king’s counsel until relinquishing his practising certificate as a barrister earlier this year.
The proven charges related to his behaviour towards a paralegal, who was in her 20s and was work-shadowing him when he invited the woman – described in the hearing as “person two” – to his hotel room to work on a case in November 2018, then persuaded her to stay over and share his bed, despite her reluctance.
One of the charges stated: “While in a position of trust, he [Sidhu] invited person two to stay overnight in his hotel room and in his hotel bed, during a mini-pupillage or work-shadowing experience, such conduct being of a sexual nature, and which invitation he knew or ought to have known was inappropriate and/or unwanted.”
It said it was in circumstances where “he knew or ought to have known that person two did not wish to engage in sexual activity with him”.
The bar tribunal and adjudications service panel also found, again unanimously, that Sidhu “initiated sexual contact with person two … which […] he knew or ought to have known was inappropriate and/or unwanted”.
The chair of the panel, Her Honour Janet Waddicor, said its members had “grappled” with the issue of whether the sexual contact was unwanted, as person two had said in evidence, but decided this had not been proven to the criminal standard.
However, she stressed that this did not mean that it was “wanted”, and that the panel had found that it was inappropriate.
Charges brought by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) relating to activity occurring before April 2019 had to be proved to the criminal standard of beyond all reasonable doubt, but after that date it changed to the civil standard (on the balance of probabilities).
A fourth charge relating to person two was dismissed by the panel as were seven charges relating to a university student, known as person three – charges against person one were previously struck out – who had initiated contact with Sidhu on the LinkedIn website.
Waddicor said that however inappropriate and unequal that relationship was, and however damaging it was to person three, it was a personal relationship rather than a professional one and so outside the remit of the regulator.
However, the chair said that messages sent by Sidhu to person three were “reprehensible, disgusting and shocking”, adding: “It’s difficult to envisage more offensive ways to engage in role play than those here.”
She said that Fiona Horlick KC, representing the BSB, had advocated that the panel did have a remit to find against Sidhu because the role-playing involved “very serious criminal sexual offences” if it had occurred in real life, but Waddicor said that as it had not occurred in real life, this was not an argument with which the panel agreed.
Sanctions will probably be decided next month. The panel ordered that, should Sidhu request one, a practising certificate should not be issued to him until the sanctions hearing has taken place.
