A direct-access barrister has successfully overturned his six-month suspension after a High Court judge found the tribunal's sanction to be ‘clearly inappropriate’.
Stephen Taylor, called to the bar in 2002 and practising in Nottingham, was suspended for six months following a hearing before the Bar Tribunals and Adjudication Service.
Taylor had accepted direct access instructions to advise on a rating dispute but concluded the position was unarguable. The client then asked for the return of his papers and documents and Taylor went to the clerks’ room to retrieve the papers but they were not there.
The judgment in Stephen Taylor v The Bar Standards Board said: ‘In an attempt to avoid the delay of a search of the clerks’ room and the embarrassment of explaining that they were not where he thought they should be in chambers, [Taylor] told the client that they were likely to be at home and would be returned in due course. Subsequently he admitted that at the time he said that, he knew he had not taken them home.’
The papers could not be found. Months later, Taylor told the client the papers had not been taken home, could not be found and must have been disposed of in the confidential waste in chambers.
Taylor admitted one charge of professional misconduct in that he ‘knowingly misled his client by falsely stating that the client’s case papers were likely to be at [Taylor’s] home address, when at such time he knew this to be untrue’. The panel suspended him from practice for six months.
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Ruling in the appeal, Mrs Justice McGowan said: ‘With all due respect to the panel for their carefully reasoned decision, I do find that the sanction they reached was clearly inappropriate in the circumstances of this case. It was disproportionate.
‘This was not a lie told for personal gain, in any real sense. It was not a lie about the case, or the proceedings and it was clearly spontaneous. However, I do not find it to be without real significance and do not accept the submissions that this is at the lowest end, not simply of dishonest conduct but of misconduct generally.’
The judge acknowledged the consequence of six-month suspension would have been the loss of ‘at least half his annual income, a figure likely to have been in excess of £100,000’.
Considering the sanction again, the judge said Taylor had an unblemished previous record, admitted the breach to the client and accepted the charge before the tribunal. Replacing the six-month suspension with a £25,000 fine, the judge said: ‘In my view whilst this dishonest conduct does not warrant a period of suspension it is serious misconduct.’
