‘Fake gay dating profile used to target lawyer’

A BUSINESSMAN set up a fake profile on a gay dating site for a lawyer in a campaign of abuse against a firm he claimed had cheated him out of millions, a court heard.

Jeremy Harris, a partner at Kemp Little LLP, told jurors that the page featured an offer to perform sex acts in his office toilets.

He told Inner London Crown Court he was sent a link to the page by Jonathan Sherwood, 54, a former client in April 2016. Sherwood, the boss of a software firm, is accused of bombarding staff at Kemp Little LLP with abusive calls and messages after claiming they “ripped him off ” in a contract dispute involving his company and an Austrian business in 2012.

Sherwood also racially abused Siddhartha Mankad, the law firm’s chief operating Officer, the court heard.

Sherwood, of St James’s Walk, Islington, north London, denies racially aggravated harassment.

The trial continues.