Former criminal bar leader Jo Sidhu fails to have disciplinary hearing heard in private

Former Criminal Bar Association chair Jo Sidhu today failed in his attempt to have disciplinary proceedings against him heard in private.

On the first day of an eight-day hearing yesterday the Bar Tribunal and Adjudication Services tribunal was asked to consider a privacy and anonymity application over allegations that Sidhu behaved inappropriately with three women. The lawyer, who appeared remotely but with his camera off and the word Respondent on screen, did not speak during the public part of the proceedings. The remainder of the application was heard in private to hear medical evidence.

For Sidhu, Alisdair Williamson KC said: ‘It is well recognised that in certain cases blackmail, breach of confidence, the administration of justice will be defeated if the cases were held in public.

‘In other words, there is material that the privacy of which is the very issue of contention. Here the respondent contests that his right to a private life is being wrongly breached and if this hearing, all of it, were held in public and he were acquitted, his right to a private life will still have been defeated and he would have no remedy. That genie cannot be put back in the bottle.’

He told the five-person panel when asked if the argument applied only to the claimant identified as 'Person 3': ‘I can see the merit of my case as a slope. It may have a higher point for Person 3.’ He added: ‘The blackmail and confidence argument extends to all material, I accept Person 3 is the high point of that.’

Fiona Horlick KC, for the Bar Standards Board, said: ‘Our position has always been that there will be some aspect of this hearing that should be held in private on my learned friend’s blackmail analogy.’

The panel allowed media submissions on why the hearing should not be heard in private or the respondent granted anonymity.

The remainder of the application, which dealt with medical grounds and included evidence from two medical experts, was held in private.

The panel gave its decision in private but waiting press were told that the hearing would be heard in public and Sidhu could be named.

This afternoon, the panel will be hearing a stay application brought by Sidhu. The charges brought against Sidhu have not yet been read out to him. He is expected to deny all charges.