The VERY right-on friends of blonde in clinch with Corbyn aide
(As her father says: She’s just friendly after a few drinks!)
AS a leading Left-wing lawyer, she is normally quick to speak out on matters of controversy.
But last night Jennifer Robinson left it to her father to make the case for the defence after she was pictured canoodling with Jeremy Corbyn’s married spin doctor.
Miss Robinson, 36, a human rights barrister from Australia, was photographed in a series of embraces at a hotel bar with father-of-two Seumas Milne, 59. However, her father Terry insisted she was just being friendly after a couple of drinks.
‘I know my daughter pretty well,’ he said. ‘She’s probably just having a night out and I think it’s more like a friendship than anything else – especially if she’s had a few drinks.’ He admitted he had not spoken to her since the incident, believed to have taken place last Thursday.
Mr Robinson, a racehorse trainer, added: ‘I think it’s just a storm in a tea cup.’
Miss Robinson is best known for representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is close friends with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and her film star husband George.
She and Mr Milne were spotted at a balcony bar in a public area at the fashionable Courthouse Hotel in Shoreditch, East London. A witness to the liaison said the couple ‘were very hands on’ and indulged in ‘heavy petting’ before heading inside the £300-a-night hotel.
The pair appear to have known each other since at least October 2015, when she posted a message on Twitter congratulating him on becoming the new Labour leader’s directorcations. a number Miss of strategy of Robinson pro-Labourand also communi-tweets issued after last month’s election. She is Facebook friends with former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who employed Mr Milne in a series of senior posts. During his time at the paper, Mr Milne wrote articles in support of Mr Assange and is understood to have visited him at the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge – where he has been holed up since seeking asylum there in 2012 in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape and sexual assault allegations.
Although the charges against him in Sweden have been dropped, Assange still faces arrest for breaching UK bail conditions if he leaves the embassy. Former public schoolboy Mr Milne has a daughter aged 27 and a son aged 24. He lives in a £ 2million house in Richmond, South West London, with his wife of 25 years, private tutor Cristina Montanari, 60.
He read philosophy, politics and economics at Balliol College, Oxford – where Miss Robinson won a postgraduate scholarship to study law some 30 years later. She was raised with her five siblings in Berry, 80 miles south of Sydney. After Balliol, she joined City law firm Finers Stephens Innocent and has represented Mr Assange since 2010.
During her time in London she became close friends with Mrs Clooney and was a bridesmaid at the Clooneys’ star-studded wedding in Venice in 2014. Miss Robinson now works for Doughty Street Chambers in London alongside her mentor, fellow Australian Geoffrey
‘She’s just having a night out’
Robertson QC. She has been linked to campaign group Hacked Off and has described herself as having ‘family values’ and being ‘motivated by a sense of injustice’.
In the past, Miss Robinson has questioned whether an affair should prevent a senior political figure from keeping his job.
In 2013 she tweeted about General David Petraeus, who quit as CIA director: ‘So an extramarital affair disqualifies a person from heading the CIA. Past support for torture, rendition and the kill list does not. Wow.’
Miss Robinson and Mr Milne did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.