The couple deny launching a “vulgar” campaign of threats against the Legal 500 barrister’s former mistress
A pair of married lawyers who allegedly launched a “campaign of embarrassment and threats” against a pregnant woman are in court this week defending stalking charges.
Jonathan Simpson and his wife Katherine, who live in Winchester, each deny a single count of stalking involving serious alarm or distress, while Jonathan is also charged with acting in breach of a restraining order.
According to the Legal 500 index, 48 year-old Simpson is a criminal barrister at Charter Chambers. The University of Birmingham graduate has, apparently, represented everyone from “artful dodgers to aristocrats, sports stars to scoundrels”, and specialises in “drugs, sex, violence and theft cases”. His 49 year-old wife is a property law specialist and the head of residential real estate at central London firm Pemberton Greenish.
The complainant is Jonathan’s former mistress, who was pregnant and had a young child at the time the alleged stalking occurred. The court has heard that Jonathan and the unnamed woman began an 18 month affair after 20 years of marriage, but when it ended Jonathan continued to contact her. David Sapiecha, prosecuting, explained:
Despite being verbally warned by the police to desist he continued.
Though Jonathan was eventually served with a restraining order and Katherine with a harassment order, jurors have been told that both defendants “carried out a campaign of embarrassment and threats against the woman”, actions described by prosecuting counsel as “vulgar” and “amounting to misconduct”.
Southwark Crown Court has heard that Jonathan — among other things — turned up at the victim’s home and attended her child’s school. The lawyer, who was called to the bar in 1993, also allegedly planned to “leaflet parents outside” the school.
A letter allegedly sent by Katherine to the father of the victim’s child was read out in court. In it, she wrote “my husband had an 18 month affair with the mother of your child”, and continued:
Her attempt to steal my husband through her attempts at sexual and emotional manipulation will be my unmaking. Two can play at that game.
And:
CCTV has already captured far too much of her and Jonathan.
The trial continues today.
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