By Gavin Mackintosh-
A solicitor who derailed a trial has incurred a £150,000 costs order, after causing a judge to recuse himself by sending a court clerk a link to a RollOnFriday story.
Warren Grant, a consultant solicitor at Rexton Law, sent the court official a link to a story about the barrister representing the opposing side in a fraud case. The story revealed that the barrister in question, Henry Hendron, had been convicted for possession of ‘chemsex’ drugs with intent to supply.
Warren Lewis Grant,whose picture appears to have been tainted from the firm’s site, was admitted as a solicitor in 1989, and removed in March 2015, following 13 years as an immigration judge. The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) took action following the allegation Grant watched pornographic material on judicial IT equipment in his office.
The lord chancellor and lord chief justice at the time described his conduct as an ‘inexcusable misuse of his judicial IT account and wholly unacceptable conduct’ for a judicial office holder. Action was taken after the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) took action following the allegation Grant watched pornographic material on judicial IT equipment in his office.
When The Eye Of Media.Com contacted the firm, Rex law claimed there was no senior member of the firm available to address the call.
The announcement that Judge Gerald was recusing himself from a long-running property fraud case was made at The Royal Courts Of Justice last week “Most of what I will be referring to revolves around the somewhat irregular communications of the solicitor, Warren Grant”, Judge Gerald said. The judge blasted the actions of the solicitor as improper.
The judge said Grant had suggested in a phone call to the judge’s clerk that she should conduct an internet search on Hendron because, said the judge, “he had apparently been involved in (I quote her quoting him) ‘a cocaine-fuelled sex party’”.
“That is something which is somewhat surprising for a solicitor to inform a judge’s clerk of, and it is difficult to understand what the relevance of it could possibly be”, he added. HHJ Gerald decided to google Hendron. “For reasons which I cannot now recall, my attention was drawn to two things on the internet”, one of which “stated that Mr Hendron had been suspended from practice owing to some criminal matters which were, from recollection, to do with some sort of cocaine at some sort of party”.
“What I have not done and did not do is follow the RollOnFriday link: I have no idea what that is”, he claimed, in what is now RollOnFriday’s best testimonial and mandatory staff tattoo. The judge asked Hendron’s client to decide whether he should recuse himself because of it. She decided he should, “not on the basis of actual bias, but on the basis of apparent bias”, said the judge.
Grant’s “improper and extraordinary” emails were “calculated to undermine the standing, reliability and integrity of [Hendron] in the eyes of the court“, he said, and “a clear attempt to influence the judge”. He concluded that, in his view, they represented “an attempt to pervert the course of justice”.
It was in light of the extremely serious financial consequences of the trial’s delay caused by Grant’s conduct that Rex Law was slapped with a hefty cost bill of £150,000.
Image: Facebook.com