More and more lawyers working in the sensitive fields of family, crime and immigration are at risk of violence, threats or intimidation. Philip Hoult examines what can be done to take lawyers out of the firing line, and hears of one lawyer’s terrifying ordeal




When lawyers outside the UK receive death threats, are intimidated or have their offices attacked, there is an understandable display of righteous indignation. But is it now time to look closer to home?



Earlier this year, the offices of south London firm Russell Stanley were firebombed (see [2004] Gazette, 11 March, 4). This was not an isolated incident – the Camberwell-based practice had already suffered four break-ins in 2004 alone, with the offenders daubing the walls with racist graffiti, stealing computers and destroying documents.



The fire-bombing is being investigated by Southwark police but Russell Stanley’s sole principal, Emenike Mgbemena, told the Gazette at the time that he believed the attacks were in part triggered by the firm’s focus on immigration and asylum work.



Russell Stanley is not the only firm to have been threatened or intimidated in the past couple of years. In the past three months, Mudassar Arani, one-time legal adviser to Muslim cleric Abu Hamza, has received a number of offensive letters and packages, as well as abusive phone calls (see page 28 and [2004] Gazette, 4 March, 5).



A partner at another firm contacted by the Gazette, who spoke on condition of anonymity, vividly remembers receiving an ‘extremely scary’ death threat on his voicemail shortly after winning a high-profile asylum case two years ago.



‘I had issued a release commenting on the judgment, and been interviewed by TV and the press on the steps of the court,’ he explains. ‘The only way the person could have got my direct line was from a copy of the release. [Putting the telephone number on there] was a very bad mistake.’



His firm also had to shut its Web site down for a while after receiving a threatening e-mail. This message was traced back to a chat-room on a Web site run by a far-right group, where it was subsequently discovered there were a number of e-mails and discussions about the firm in question. Contributors to the site were asking if anyone knew the practice. ‘They asked: "do you think we should let them know how we feel?"’ the lawyer says.



‘To be targeted by one of these groups would be an absolute nightmare,’ he admits. ‘They are very dangerous.’ Thankfully, the firm gradually received fewer and fewer mentions on the site until it disappeared off the radar.



The Gazette, meanwhile, knows of other firms to have received racist material through the post.



With asylum at the top of the political and media agenda, it should perhaps come as no surprise that lawyers are being targeted for abuse.



But it is not just in the immigration field where there are grounds for taking the view that lawyers – and other individuals working in the justice system – are increasingly becoming targets for violence or intimidation. This is particularly true for areas of practice where emotions can run high, such as crime or family.



In the absence of any historical statistics, however, it is difficult to prove that the situation is getting worse.



The Bar Council started to collect statistics on incidents at court involving counsel from the end of 2002, following a meeting with Court Service officials attended by the Law Society.



The outcome of that get-together was that there are now, at every court in the country, incident report forms for counsel to fill in. There have so far been 19 incidents, of which at least eight involved physical attacks on counsel (see box).



On top of this, in an answer to a parliamentary question in October 2002, the then courts minister, Yvette Cooper MP, revealed that there had been a total of nine incidents involving court staff and judges since the Lord Chancellor’s Department (now the Department for Constitutional Affairs) first started collecting statistics in April 2001. There have been more incidents since the minister’s statement, a department spokeswoman told the Gazette.



One person who is convinced that there has been an increase in violence and threats against lawyers in the court environment is Brian O’Neill, a barrister at 2 Hare Court and former secretary to the Criminal Bar Association.



Mr O’Neill was assaulted in 2002 as he walked from the tube station to Wood Green Crown Court, where he was prosecuting a drug-dealing case. He was hit above his right eyebrow with a brick and needed 13 stitches – if the blow had been slightly lower, he would have lost the sight in his right eye.



The attacker escaped in a getaway car, which, it was subsequently discovered, had been reported to police the night before for acting suspiciously outside his home. ‘Although there will never be sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution, the clear information available was that one of the defendants took out a contract on me,’ he says. It was not the first time Mr O’Neill had been attacked near a court either – four years ago, a defendant jumped out of the dock to attack him, but he managed to get out of the way.



‘In terms of attacks on people working in the criminal justice system, [the increase] is a result of more ruthless and dangerous criminals playing for higher stakes,’ he says.



Family law, perhaps unsurprisingly, is another area where lawyers can find themselves in the firing line when emotions run out of control. In 1998, Dorset solicitor Sheriff Payne was on crutches for months after the disgruntled husband of a divorce client ran him over, while more recently London law firms with well-known family practices have been targeted by hoax letter bombs.



So what can be done to take lawyers out of the line of fire?



Recognising that there is a growing problem is one thing – tackling it is another matter altogether, not least because the threats and intimidation have different underlying reasons depending on the practice area.



That said, several of the lawyers who have been threatened contend that politicians and the press have a duty not to demonise lawyers in general, and legal aid lawyers in particular. ‘If it is OK for the national press and government ministers to talk about the "scourge" of asylum lawyers, we are in some ways fair game for some individuals,’ says Jawaid Luqmani, partner in London firm Luqmani & Thompson and an executive committee member of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. ‘The government seems to think that people who work in this field are doing it to overthrow the state – it does paint some lawyers as subversives.’



The accusation that politicians’ use of aggressive language about lawyers has encouraged greater hostility towards them is a charge that David Blunkett, for one, flatly denies – a spokesman for the home secretary describes it as ‘absolutely ridiculous’.



Nevertheless, there seems to be little doubt that while the motives of lawyers are openly questioned, they will continue to be seen as part of a problem and therefore vulnerable.



Another issue that could be addressed is court security, where Mr O’Neill says there is still a major problem. ‘I don’t blame the people wearing the uniforms,’ he says. ‘They don’t get paid much money and don’t get paid to put their lives on the line.’



Following the attack on Judge Ann Goddard QC by a defendant in the Old Bailey in January 2001, dock security has been improved but, as Mr O’Neill explains, the incidents usually happen outside the dock.



An initiative floated by the Lord Chancellor’s Department to create a courts constabulary came to naught, however, when the Treasury said there was no available funding. ‘Despite increasing attacks on prosecutors and others, there are no steps being taken by government to remedy the situation,’ Mr O’Neill complains, adding that plans in the Courts Act 2003 to give additional powers and training to court security officers will have little impact.



On a more practical level, one initiative Ms Arani would welcome is the creation of a support group for lawyers that have been assaulted, threatened or intimidated. As sole principal, she says she would have appreciated having someone to talk to who had been through a similar situation or who understood the issues.



Individual lawyers involved in incidents may understandably be inclined to shrug their shoulders and consider them one-offs or simply something that goes with the territory. If everyone takes that view, then arguably the situation can only get worse. Perhaps it is time for lawyers collectively to fight back.




Incidents at court



Wolverhampton Crown Court, October 2003

‘On leaving court, a friend/relative of the co-defendant approached counsel. They then flicked a cigarette at them, racially abused them and said they would "rip [their] f*****g head off".’



Stoke-on-Trent County Court, September 2003

‘Counsel assaulted by parent in a case – head-butted in the face and then pinned against the wall, suffering cuts and swelling to the lips, dizziness and headaches.’



Barnsley Magistrates’ Court, June 2003

‘Upon acting as agent-prosecutor, a court observer followed the solicitor towards the CPS room and assaulted her without warning… punching her in the left breast and rib causing considerable shock and trauma.’



Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court, May 2003

‘While prosecuting, counsel was assaulted by the defendant who entered a conference she was in. The defendant set about kicking her to the floor and then slammed a chair down on to her legs.’



Unnamed court, December 2002

‘Upon gathering her papers together after the hearing, counsel was assaulted by her client’s husband. He punched her four or five times in the back of the head, neck and shoulders.’



Source: The Bar Council




How intimidation turned a lawyer’s life into a nightmare



Mudassar Arani tells Philip Hoult that she has run a gauntlet of hate because of her work



Imagine receiving a toilet roll through the post with a picture of Osama Bin Laden scrawled on it. The message reads: ‘Ooh Mr Terrrorist, wipe, flush and smile.’



At best a puerile and unfunny joke, you might think, if you were being overly charitable. It becomes even less funny, however, when Mudassar Arani, sole principal of Southall-based firm Arani & Co and recipient of the message, reveals it is part of a series of anonymous threats and intimidation she has received in recent weeks.



Ms Arani says she has been the target of cranks since the Sun newspaper claimed on its front page that she was the ‘mastermind’ behind controversial Muslim cleric Abu Hamza’s fight against deportation. She denies the claim, saying she is not advising Mr Hamza on the case because he has not been granted legal aid.



The Sun article also claimed that her firm had ‘raked in more than £200,000 of taxpayers’ cash’ in 2003, and went on to name the type of vehicle she drove and the area of west London where she lives.



Ms Arani has taken the tabloid to the Press Complaints Commission over the article, but it has yet to adjudicate.



Meanwhile, the letters have continued. ‘Why don’t you and your fellow scumbags return to your original lands?’ started one. ‘I am quite sure it will not be so profitable for you as you are happy to take western money. One day you will all rot in hell… so f*** off.’



The latest offering said: ‘I think it is absolutely disgusting that you are helping an animal like Abdul (sic) Hamza stay in this country. What is with you people? You seem to hate everything that is English so why don’t you leave here?’



Perhaps most worrying of all – and something Ms Arani has passed on to the police – was that her firm’s details had been placed on the Web site of a far-right group. A contributor to the site, she says, described her as a ‘traitor to the UK and the UK way of life – she is a bitch and we need to sort her out’.



Ms Arani adds that she had recently received a call from a journalist contact who had heard that a contract had been taken out on her and that her premises were going to be the subject of an arson attack. She has also received threatening phone calls.



Admitting that the situation is ‘a nightmare’, she says she has had to change her way of life as a result of the threats. She has swapped her car and borrows those of members of her family to get to work. She no longer uses her normal route to work and she is suspicious if a car is following behind her.



Arani & Co’s offices have been made more secure, with CCTV and a buzzer system, so that people cannot gain access unless staff know who they are.



‘It can be very frightening – you do not know if these threats are going to be carried out,’ she continues. ‘It is so sad because it is as if your independence is being taken away.’



But it is not just Ms Arani that has been affected – she says some of her employees are thinking of leaving as they do not feel safe.



Unsurprisingly, she maintains that the press has been at fault. ‘The press owe a duty not to carry this hate campaign against individuals over to lawyers,’ she says. ‘The press are abusing this power they have got.’



Ms Arani maintains that at the heart of her situation is the issue of an individual’s entitlement to legal representation, whoever they are and whatever they might have done, and the type of society we want to live in.



‘You can’t have a rule where one person should not be entitled to legal representation – where do you draw the line?’ she asks. ‘One of the reasons we are proud of the system in Great Britain is that there is a fair procedure and everybody is treated equally and judged on the evidence. Are people saying that there should be categories of individuals – such as murderers or paedophiles – who should not be entitled to legal aid?’



Ms Arani admits that when she was first on the receiving end of the intimidation, there was a part of her that regretted doing the high-profile work because it was not worth the risk. In this respect, she would be like ‘quite a few’ ethnic minority solicitors she says she knows who will not take these cases on because they are frightened about the implications for their safety.



But, as time goes on, she has decided she will not be intimidated, that she is only doing her job, and that the work is challenging and exciting. She is also grateful for the support from clients, including those in Belmarsh Prison, who have asked after her welfare and have encouraged her to carry on.





Defiantly, she says: ‘I am only going to live once and I will live the way I want to.’