A prominent black judge has accused the lord chancellor and the lord chief justice of supporting a misconduct ruling that he describes as a “deliberate act of discrimination and victimisation”.

Liz Truss, the lord chancellor and justice secretary, and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd yesterday backed an earlier ruling against Peter Herbert (pictured), a crown court judge who also sits in immigration and employment tribunals.

In January, a disciplinary panel of the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office found that Herbert, who has been a part-time judge for 20 years, had made “inappropriate” comments at a 2015 rally in London in support of the discredited mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman.

At the rally Herbert criticised a ruling by the Electoral Commission that Rahman’s election as mayor of the East End borough was void. The disciplinary panel found that the judge’s comments had “put the reputation of the judiciary at risk”, which amounted to misconduct.

In a statement yesterday, Truss and Lord Thomas agreed with the disciplinary ruling and confirmed that they had “written to Herbert with formal advice regarding his future conduct as a fee-paid judge”.

But Herbert has vowed to fight the disciplinary ruling in the courts. In a letter to Lord Thomas, which has been seen by The Times, the judge said: “I fundamentally disagree that what I said posed any risk to the reputation of the judiciary.”

He accused the lord chief justice and Truss of supporting disciplinary action based on “a pattern of differential treatment based on my race as well as victimisation”.

Herbert, who is also the long-standing chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers, told Lord Thomas that his support for the disciplinary decision was a “breach of the judicial equality and diversity policy that specifically prohibits bullying and harassment”.

Lord Thomas and Truss informed Herbert that he could appeal against the decision to the judicial appointments and conduct ombudsman. However, Herbert indicated that he was considering challenging the decision in the courts. “I will take whatever legal action I deem necessary to expose the absence of equal treatment under the law,” he said.

Ministers are unlikely to rush to allow parents greater flexibility around term-time holidays after the Supreme Court ruled that those who remove their children from school for even half a day could be prosecuted and fined.

Lawyers predicted that the government would not have the appetite to bring forward legislation, despite the ruling striking at the heart of middle-class behaviour as parents attempt to avoid expensive peak travel times.

Five justices – led by the court’s president, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury – unanimously backed the Isle of Wight council in its appeal against previous rulings supporting Jon Platt, reports The Times. Platt had refused to pay a £60 fine after he took his daughter on a holiday, causing her to miss seven school days in 2015. The lower courts had found in favour of the father and his argument that his daughter had complied with the school’s rules that she “regularly” attend. The daughter had an attendance record of more than 90 per cent.

But the Supreme Court justices took a far less lenient approach. They ordered that the case should return to the magistrates’ court, where Platt should be found guilty of failing to ensure his child attended school regularly. However, the father said outside the court that he had no intention of pleading guilty.

Ben Collingwood, who works in the education team at the Barlow Robbins law firm in Surrey, predicted that the ruling would not trigger a ministerial call for parliamentary draftsmen.

“It seems unlikely that this will result in the government identifying a need to legislate now to allow more flexibility,” Collingwood said. “Head teachers will retain a degree of discretion over whether to authorise absence or issue a fine on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether there is good reason or an emergency which may necessitate the absence.”

Sarah Woosey, a solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, said that the justices were “clearly concerned about the possible disruption to schools and to the education of children generally if this was left as a matter for individual parents alone”.

But Simon Burge, a partner at Blake Morgan, spoke for “cash-strapped” parents across the country when he said that for those “with school-age children struggling to pay the exorbitant prices often imposed by tour operators, the decision to overturn the earlier ruling by the High Court comes as unwelcome news”.

Lawyers for Jonathan Mathew, a Barclays trader who was convicted last July of manipulating the Libor rate, are considering an appeal after two other defendants were acquitted yesterday.

A jury at Southwark crown court in London found Stylianos Contogoulas and Ryan Reich not guilty of conspiracy to defraud. The unanimous verdict came after a jury last year failed to reach a decision on the two while convicting Mathew and two others.

“We have always believed that our client … was entitled to the same not guilty verdict that we are pleased to see returned today,” Matthew Frankland, a partner at Byrne and Partners, the London law firm that acted for Mathew, said.

Frankland said that “we always felt that the ultimate verdict of his jury was wrong”, going on to claim that “for what it is worth that view has been expressed to us privately and publicly by many impartial observers of the trial”.

The lawyer said that the retrial exposed fresh developments. “Not least … the discovery that the Serious Fraud Office’s experts apparently and fundamentally failed to understand the Libor setting process,” he said.

Frankland said the firm was “actively considering whether the recent disclosure, which was not provided to us at trial, may now be reflected in a renewed appeal”.

Other lawyers also welcomed the verdict. Jonathan Pickworth, a partner at the London office of the US law firm White & Case, said it showed “that British juries are perfectly capable of seeing through media scapegoating of bankers”.

Pickworth described the verdict as “another lightning-quick acquittal following a lengthy trial, which tells us all we need to know about what the jury thought of the prosecution case”.

He added: “No doubt there will be a post mortem at the SFO. There is going to need to be a lot of thought about the merit of pursuing other benchmark trials, such as Euribor.”

Regulators are “gathering evidence” to bring possible disciplinary proceedings after the first criminal conviction for breaching pensions rules involved a law firm and a solicitor.

Ashley Wilson Solicitors, based in London, and Tony Wilson, its senior partner, were together fined more than £16,000, The Times reported yesterday.

Wilson and the firm were found to have failed to provide required documents to the Pensions Regulator despite officials making repeated demands for almost nine months. The documents related to a property linked to an individual who was involved in a fraud investigation, and regulators said that neither Wilson nor the firm generally was connected with the investigation and there was no suggestion that their staff had committed an offence.

The convictions are seen as evidence of a much tougher enforcement stance by the watchdog, which was criticised last year for its approach before the BHS debacle.

And yesterday, the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed that it was actively assessing whether the case should be referred to the professional disciplinary tribunal. However, an SRA spokesman said the regulator had no immediate plans to intervene in the practice because it did not automatically make that move in cases involving criminal convictions of solicitors.

The spokesman said that there were some 1,800 solicitors with criminal convictions still practising in England and Wales. Most were guilty of minor offences, a many involving motoring convictions.

In cases where there was no obvious risk to the public, said the spokesman, the SRA did not immediately intervene.

• The SRA has clarified the recent fine levied on Clyde & Co, the City of London law firm that was found to have breached money-laundering regulations. The firm itself was fined £50,000 in addition to three individual partners being fined £10,000 each, bringing the total penalty to £80,000. Earlier reports suggested that the total fine was £50,000.
  

A 78-year-old Laura Ashley boss has been ordered to pay his 70-year-old ex-wife £64 million in one of the biggest divorce settlements in the UK courts.

Pauline Chai, a former beauty queen, wanted about £100 million from her former husband Khoo Kay Peng on the breakdown of their 42-year marriage, saying that she had been a “traditional” wife and mother and therefore deserved half of what she claimed was an asset pot of £205 million.

Khoo, the non-executive chairman of Laura Ashley Holdings, said Chai should receive about £9 million, arguing that he had made a special contribution to generating the couple’s wealth. His true assets, he said, were worth £66 million.

Mr Justice Bodey’s ruling on the £64 million package, consisting of cash and property, came after a trial in the family division of the High Court in London that ended years of bitterly fought litigation.

The pair — who are both from Malaysia and were married in 1970 and have five children — have spent what one judge called the “stratospheric” legal costs of more than £6 million between them on lawyers since splitting.

A barrister who admitted supplying drugs that killed his teenage boyfriend during a sex party has been suspended from practice for three years.

Henry Hendron, 36, was sentenced at the Old Bailey a year ago to 140 hours of unpaid work after being convicted of supplying £1,000 of “chemsex” drugs that caused the death of Miguel Jimenez, 18, during a party at the barrister’s flat in the Temple.

Yesterday, the Bar Standards Board confirmed his suspension by an independent disciplinary tribunal, which heard the case last Wednesday. The tribunal also fined Hendron £2,000 for two charges relating to administrative failings in his role as head of Strand Chambers in London.

Those charges related to Hendron failing to ensure that fees earned by a particular barrister working in the chambers were properly and efficiently administered, and failing to give proper notice to a barrister when asking that barrister to leave the chambers.

Sara Jagger, the board’s director of professional conduct, said: “A conviction for supplying illegal drugs is a serious matter. In this case, it had tragic consequences. Hendron failed to meet one of the core duties of a barrister, which is to uphold public trust and confidence. The suspension imposed by the tribunal reflects this.”

High court judge breaks with tradition to allow lawyer to answer phone – The Guardian

Appeal judges quash conviction of school worker who hanged himself while on trial for sex offences – Daily Mirror

Britain's first crowdfunded private prosecution sees woman cleared of killing cyclist – Daily Mail