Barrister who belittled rival with ‘Violet Elizabeth’ insult is fined

‘It is noteworthy that Ms Brown’s opponent was 22 years her junior in call. It was verging on bullying’

A BARRISTER at the prestigious Doughty Street Chambers has been fined for belittling an opposing lawyer by comparing her to the Just William character Violet Elizabeth Bott.

Althea Brown’s conduct towards her junior rival in an employment case was “verging on bullying”, said the chairman of the Bar Standards Board tribunal that heard the case.

Ms Brown was fined £1,500 and ordered to pay costs of £5,820 by the tribunal which heard that she called the other barrister – referred to as Ms C – a liar and likened her to the spoilt and unpleasant Violet Elizabeth.

Ms Brown, who was called to the bar in 1995, also spoke to her opponent in a “very patronising manner” and called her “intellectually incapable” during a two-day employment tribunal.

She mimicked Ms C’s submissions in “a noticeably different and disrespectful tone of voice to her usual voice”, suggesting they were akin to Violet Elizabeth Bott’s lisping catchphrase: “I’m going to scream and scream until I’m sick.”

Bott is the petulant daughter of a millionaire in Richmal Crompton’s muchloved books about schoolboy William Brown, the first of which was published in 1922.

The tribunal found the comparison to her unfairly suggested that Ms C was “behaving in a juvenile and/or petulant manner”.

It was told that Ms Brown was twice asked to apologise to her opponent by the judge at the employment tribunal. The judge then adjourned the hearing after Ms C left, refusing to carry on because of the “bullying and insulting behaviour of Ms Brown”.

In the order the judge wrote, following the adjournment, she said: “The hearing was distressing primarily because of the conduct of Ms Brown, she spoke to Ms C in a very patronising manner and, at one point, called her a liar.”

The judge recorded that Ms Brown had apologised after the adjournment, after Ms C sent the judge a note “stating that she was not well due to the bullying and insulting behaviour of Ms Brown”.

Ms C told the Bar Standards Board tribunal that she “felt [she] could not continue” following the “nasty” comments. His Honour Witold Pawlak, the chairman of the tribunal, said that Ms Brown had behaved in a “childish and petulant way in order to get her own way”.

“It is noteworthy that Ms Brown’s opponent was 22 years her junior in call [to the bar],” he said. “It was conduct verging on bullying.”

Doughty Street Chambers is a renowned set of barristers’ chambers, with offices in London and Manchester.

Notable members have included human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Sir Keir Starmer.