The Bar Standards Board has opened an investigation into a barrister who revealed the result of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the expansion of Heathrow Airport the day before it was handed down.
Tim Crosland, an unregistered barrister and director of climate charity Plan B Earth, faces an investigation by the regulator after he was held in contempt of court for breaking the embargo on the draft judgment last May.
The BSB this week told Crosland that his breach of the embargo and the finding of contempt could ‘diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in him or in the profession … and/or could reasonably be seen by the public to undermine his integrity’. Crosland, who has been given until 4 May to respond, said: ‘The climate crisis is no joke and I’m glad the authorities are taking it seriously.’
He was held in contempt over a press release sent to media organisations the day before the Supreme Court’s December 2020 judgment, in which he said he was breaking the embargo ‘as an act of civil disobedience’. ‘This will be treated as “contempt of court” and I am ready to face the consequences,’ Crosland added.
At a hearing last May, Crosland argued that evidence that the Heathrow expansion would expose the public to ‘extreme danger’ had been deliberately suppressed, saying: ‘The antidote to that suppression was the spotlight of publicity that would follow from breaking the embargo.’
But Lord Lloyd-Jones said: ‘There is, however, no defence available to [Crosland] arising out of his concerns or fears as to the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision. There is here no defence of public interest. There is no such thing as a justifiable contempt of court.’
Crosland was fined £5,000 by three Supreme Court justices and ordered to pay costs of £15,000. A second appeal, in which he argued that the Supreme Court wrongly disregarded his intentions and failed to act impartially, was unanimously dismissed by a panel of five justices in December.
