A barrister who accidentally breached a confidentiality order has avoided a contempt of court charge – but could still face disciplinary action from their regulator.

In a ruling published yesterday, the High Court found that the unnamed barrister was ultimately responsible for confidential details about litigants being published. The barrister, their chambers and details of the original case have all been anonymised and the hearing to decide on what action – if any – should be taken against the barrister was held in private.

Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the King’s Bench Division, said that the confidentiality order had been designed to prevent information about claimants in certain proceedings from being made public, because it could put them at risk of harm. The court had ordered that the claimants should not be identified directly or indirectly, and that the court file should be closed to non-parties.

The judgment, which included confidential annexes, was handed down and emailed in full to all counsel. One of the barristers then forwarded the email and attachment to their chambers’ marketing team without looking at the attachment, and both the judgment and annexes were published on the chambers website. It has also since come to light that the barrister also emailed the judgment and annexes to a person on a work placement. The chambers took down everything as soon as a third party raised the issue.

Sharp made clear that breaches of a court order may be treated as a contempt and that compliance with court orders was ‘a cornerstone of professional duty, and integral to the working relationship between the bar and the court which facilitates the administration of justice’.

She explained that the barrister has written to the court to acknowledge their mistake and sincerely apologise. The chambers has also changed its publishing policy and now posts links to websites where judgments may be publicly available.

Sharp added: ‘These breaches were undoubtedly the result of carelessness on the part of barrister and a systemic flaw in the chambers’ arrangements. Those arrangements delegated decisions about what was put on the chambers’ website (judgments and summaries of them) to chambers’ staff, and were not subject to effective control by the barristers concerned.’

She noted that the barrister had reported themselves to the Bar Standards Board and so no further steps needed to be taken by the court.