Exclusive: Junior barrister tells Legal Cheek he’s looking forward to ‘knocking out each and every one of the BSB charges’
Scandal-hit barrister Henry Hendron is set to appear before a bar disciplinary tribunal next month, four years after he was suspended from the profession following a conviction for ‘chemsex’ drug offences.
Hendron is alleged to have “behaved in way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in the profession”, according to a charge sheet published by the Bar Tribunal and Adjudication Service (BTAS).
The junior barrister is also said to have “behaved in a way which could reasonably be seen by the public to undermine his integrity” and “failed to be open and co-operative with the regulator”.
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) declined to provide further details as to the circumstances surrounding Hendron’s alleged misconduct.
Hendron, who was called to the bar in 2006, will appear virtually before a five-person disciplinary panel next month, BTAS’s website states. It’s worth noting that only a five-person panel, as opposed to a three-strong bench, has the power to disbar a barrister.
“This February I appear before another BSB tribunal to face some 18 charges, which the BSB suddenly and unexpectedly decided that it was going to bring against me only last year”, Hendron told Legal Cheek. “[This] despite the fact that the BSB had all material facts necessary to take a decision on charge back in 2016 for half the present charges and 2017 for the other half of the charges.”
Hendron, continuing, said the BSB’s “decision to charge me only now in respect of these historic matters is even more surprising in the context of the BSB having attempted to bring several other prosecutions against me before the Tribunal in respect of matters which came after the time in which the present charges are based.”
He continued:
“I deny all the charges which I say are riddled with BSB incompetence and should not have been brought in the first place. I look forward to the upcoming Tribunal and to knocking out each and every one of the BSB charges, which I will do.”
The former Strand Chambers barrister was arrested in 2015 after his boyfriend, Miguel Jimenez, was found dead with drugs in his system. Hendron later pleaded guilty to possession of controlled drugs — ‘chemsex’ substances mephedrone and gamma-butyrolactone — with intent to supply and was suspended for three years in April 2017 (backdated to May 2016). He returned to practice in 2019.
