Former criminal bar chair Jo Sidhu KC used his lofty position to manipulate vulnerable young women into granting him sexual favours, a tribunal heard yesterday.
Sidhu faces 15 misconduct charges, all of which he denies, relating to three women who were either law students or undergoing mini-pupillage at the time of the alleged misconduct.
Fiona Horlick KC, for the Bar Standards Board, said in opening: ‘This case concerns the predatory behaviour of a very senior, very well-known member of the profession who used his pre-eminent position to manipulate vulnerable young women who were considering a career at the bar in order to gain sexual favours.’
All three women came into contact with Sidhu in a professional setting or through LinkedIn, the tribunal heard. The five-person panel was told that the women were ‘impressed’ by Sidhu’s position, and that he had ‘promised to help their law careers’.
In 2016, Person 1 contacted Sidhu by text message after he gave her his number at a professional event when she had asked about the possibility of shadowing him. He replied late at night and following a short exchange of messages Sidhu said: ‘Mmm, I would love to see you twerk’, which she found was ‘creepy and sexualised’.
Horlick said: ‘The BSB case is that Mr Sidhu chose to reply very late at night, then chose to make a heavily sexualised remark to a student.’
Person 1, ‘in an attempt to get back to professional topics’, asked Sidhu about his case and then in a follow-up message mentioned her boyfriend. Horlick said: ‘As soon as Person 1 mentioned her boyfriend, he never contacted her again and did not provide her with the profession help he had offered.’
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Reading from Person 1’s witness statement, Horlick said Person 1 could not describe the ‘true extent of her disgust’ at watching Sidhu ‘rise in the profession knowing full well what he is capable of’.
Sidhu contacted Person 2 on LinkedIn in 2018 when she was working as a paralegal. In October 2022, she messaged him via the networking site to say she wanted to ask him about becoming a barrister. Person 2 was offered a mini-pupillage by Sidhu during a trial ‘a considerable distance outside London’ where Person 2 lived.
He invited her to come back to his hotel to work on legal argument, and then to his room when he said they could not discuss their work in a public place. Horlick said: ‘Person 2 was naïve and had no experience of criminal trials. She did not realise it was inappropriate. Mr Sidhu took advantage of that fact. Nothing had prepared her for what happened next. She knew he had locked the hotel room door. He started to get ready for bed. She felt she had no choice, he would not let her go despite her saying she wanted to leave.
‘He was much older, much more senior and more influential. Person 2 felt if she did not comply it would affect her career. He insisted she slept on the bed, he turned off the lights and started kissing and touching her. She simply did not respond further, indicating she did not want sexual contact. Sexual activity stopped short of sexual intercourse.
‘She had come to trust him as a professional mentor. Mr Sidhu deliberately targeted a young attractive but naïve woman.’
Person 2 told Talk to Spot, an online tool for those working at the bar to raise concerns about inappropriate behaviour, that ‘this is not what I wanted but I felt trapped in the situation’.
Person 3, who was described as ‘even younger than Person 1 or 2’, contacted Sidhu on LinkedIn. He accepted her invitation and messaged her, wishing her well in her legal career. They met at a bar in December 2018 and Sidhu kissed Person 3 on the cheek when they said goodbye. He invited her to his hotel the next day. Sidhu ‘did not do more than touch her momentarily on the leg’. In January 2019 Sidhu ‘introduced sexual tone to their messages by asking what she wanted as a young woman’.
He asked for photos and in April 2019 Sidhu ‘wanted to start sexual video calls’. Person 3 initially refused. She later ‘agreed to a video call in which both of them were naked and Mr Sidhu was masturbating and telling her what to do’. The tribunal heard Sidhu also proposed a threesome which never happened. In March 2022 they were sexually messaging again and Person 3 began saving some of the messages ‘despite his instructions to delete them’.
Horlick said: ‘The content of those messages would mean, the BSB would say, that the public would be quite rightly horrified.’
The tribunal heard Person 3 ‘came to believe she was being groomed’ by Sidhu. She made a report to Talk to Spot after she ceased being a law student.
The hearing continues tomorrow.
