Contempt case against silk can continue

A silk accused of misleading the jury and ignoring the judge’s directions during his closing speech in a criminal trial should face summary proceedings for contempt, the judge in the case has ruled. 

Rajiv Menon KC, called in 1993, faces allegations of contempt of court over his closing speech in a trial at Woolwich Crown Court. Menon represented one of six activists accused of breaking into the Elbit Systems Factory, near Bristol, causing an estimated £1m of damage.

None of the defendants was convicted. Following a retrial, a jury found four of the defendants, including Menon’s client Charlotte Head, guilty of criminal damage.

Woolwich Crown Court decided of its own motion to proceed against Menon and referred the matter to a divisional court. However the Court of Appeal found last month there was no jurisdiction for the Administrative Court to initiate contempt proceedings of its own motion and referred the case back to the Crown court.

Ruling in Re Rajiv Menon KC, Mr Justice Johnson said although he would be ‘exceptionally slow to find that leading counsel, or for that matter any professional advocate, had committed a contempt’, there was a case to answer in contempt ‘not just on the basis of an isolated remark in the speech, but in respect of much of the content, structure and effect of [Menon's] speech’. There was a ‘strong’ public interest in considering the initiation of contempt proceedings.

He added: ‘it is a natural inference' that Menon deliberately breached court rulings. 'It is not easy to see how he could have believed that his speech was consistent with the court’s rulings.’

A referral to the Bar Standards Board would not adequately meet the public interest and would cause ‘considerable and unnecessary delay,’ Jophnson said. ‘It would also effectively delegate the court’s responsibility for enforcing its own orders to an external regulator.’

Ordering that the initiation of summary contempt proceedings be listed before another High Court judge sitting as a judge of the Crown court, Johnson stressed ‘that nothing in this judgment decides that Mr Menon has acted in contempt of court’.

He added: ‘That can only be decided if contempt proceedings have been instituted and then only if a judge finds that a contempt has been established to the criminal standard of proof. Nor have I decided to institute contempt proceedings. I have, instead, decided that the papers should be referred to a presiding judge in order to determine whether contempt proceedings should be instituted.’

Garden Court Chambers said it ‘stands in full support’ of Menon. In a statement, the chambers said: ‘The unprecedented contempt of court proceedings brought against Rajiv, a senior silk and former head of chambers, undermine and diminish our system of criminal justice. The administration of justice depends upon an independent bar willing and able to act in the best interests of their clients, fearlessly and with integrity.'