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Right decision, wrong reasons? Not going to say much about the £300 for food and electricity - the spirit of human kindness lives on and if someone is starving and without heat, helping them shouldn't be a crime. As someone has already said, far from causing the public to lose trust in the profession, it would merely serve to show that not all lawyers are greedy "so and so"s etc etc.

The £2,000 for clothes and a college course though, that does seem a bit over the top and suggests (but does not prove) that there was more than just a barrister/client relationship here.

Sure, if the criticism were that the barrister had an inappropriate relationship with a client (and perhaps part of the judgment dealt with that), then fair enough, but what does that have to do with independence? He isn't independent, he's her counsel, surely?