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A host of charges against Jo Sidhu KC have been dropped

Some are still being considered, as the tribunal hears final submissions today

Jo Sidhu KCAfter considering submissions against top barrister Jo Sidhu KC, who is accused of targeting aspiring lawyers for sex, the Bar Tribunals & Adjudication Service has struck out a host of the charges.

Here are some of the key charges that have been dropped against the former Criminal Bar Association chair:

Twerking

Sidhu is alleged to have sent a GDL student looking for work experience at the bar a WhatsApp message saying, “Mmm, I would love to see you twerk,” or words to that effect. The charge sheet states that Sidhu sent the message around 11pm and that “he had a sexual motive in sending the message”.

But the tribunal has decided that while Sidhu was “unwise” to refer to twerking, it was “not seriously reprehensible”. And that charge has been struck out.

Hotel

On the charge sheet, Sidhu is accused of inviting Person 2, a paralegal in her 20s who was doing work experience with him, to stay overnight in his hotel room and in his hotel bed, during a mini-pupillage.

The tribunal has accepted Sidhu’s submission that there was no case to answer for this charge and said that there was no evidence that he had invited her into his room, and that an invitation to the hotel alone could not amount to misconduct.

The Bar Standards Board’s barrister described Person 2 as “remarkably honest and frank” in her written and oral evidence.

Late night meeting

A late night meeting between Sidhu and another work experience student, Person 3, at a bar, “did not cross the threshold for seriously reprehensible behaviour”, the tribunal said.

Deleting messages

A charge that Sidhu asked Person 3 to delete online messages has been struck out by the tribunal because there was no investigation underway at the time, and therefore “no question of the respondent trying to destroy evidence or thwart an investigation”.

The tribunal did decide, though, that there is a case to answer over some of the other charges regarding Person 3. Here is a summary of the original charge sheet.

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