A legal aid solicitor who made offensive comments about a person in court and showed her a photograph of a sexual nature has been reprimanded as reported by the Law Gazette.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard how Geoffrey White,66, had shown Person A an image saved to his phone of a naked woman lying on a table with bottles covering her body and likened the woman in the photo to Person A, stating, “It looks like you.”
White admitted he had apologised to Person A for his conduct and said it was ‘foolish and not very funny’.
The solicitor, who represented himself in the judgement, also admitted to making a comment in court, when court was not in session, in which he said Person A ‘knows all about that, standard probation practice’ in relation to a female defendant’s charge of having sex on a train.
White, who set up Geoff White Solicitors of Horley, Surrey, in 2008, admitted the allegations against him, and breaching SRA principles. The tribunal found the allegations proved after a short hearing.
He said: “I take full and absolute responsibility for what I have done. I apologise to the profession and to the young lady. I have made a huge error, and I am here to face the consequences.
‘If I could turn back time I would but I cannot, and we are here to deal with this in a way that does not hopefully put an end to my career.”
The Law Gazette reported that White told the tribunal he was ‘more comfortable in a court room than a social situation these days’. He said: ‘I use humour as a coping mechanism.
‘The last thing I wanted to do was offend the young lady concerned but that is clearly what has happened and I am here to be appropriately sanctioned for upsetting her which was never my intention.
“The second allegation, the more serious one, it was a foolish and flippant remark which has clearly upset her. It was not my intention.’
“I am beyond embarrassed to be here. I try to do things in an honourable and principled way and on this occasion I got it wholly wrong. To get into this situation at this late stage [of my career] is painful.”
The SDT’s chair Edward Nally acknowledged the two separate incidents were ‘isolated’ cases and White ‘did not intend to cause harm’.
Mr Nally said the tribunal considered White would benefit from equality, diversity and inclusivity training.
He commented on the profession ‘moving on’, saying: ‘The profession has moved on in the intervening years since the respondent qualified. Attitudes have changed, the profession has modernised.’
Sanctioning White, Nally said: “Without diminishing the general significance to the profession of the need for people to behave in an equal, diverse and inclusive manner and to avoid these sorts of conduct and behaviour we have heard about, we feel the balance here argues for a reprimand.”
Source: Source: Michael Cross/Law Gazette, Solicitor’s Disciplinary Tribunal listings
