Recording the family court

Breaches of confidentiality, personal data and discrimination rules, the use of unqualified individuals and dishonesty findings

This digest relates to cases published by the respective regulators during week ending 14 August 2026 which have sufficient detail to allow us to comment.

First, between around March and December 2021 she made audio recordings of family court hearings on at least three occasions without the consent of the parties or the judge, knowing that she was not lawfully entitled to do so. Second, she sent those recordings by WhatsApp to individuals she employed and asked them to transcribe them, knowing that the recordings had not been obtained lawfully. Third, on or around 25 March 2021 she sent the client’s papers for a CMS appeal to the personal email address of an individual she employed, so that the employee could work on the case, without first asking that person to sign a confidentiality agreement. Fourth, on 22 July 2021, due to attend an advocates’ meeting before a five day final hearing in care proceedings in which she acted for the mother, she sent in her place someone she knew was unqualified; the other advocates felt unable to take her client’s position or discuss the issues, and the meeting had to be rescheduled to the morning of the trial.

A fifth matter sits apart from the case work. On 8 December 2021 it was found that she sent messages to a WhatsApp group which mocked the confidential mental health difficulties of a former employee. An Employment Tribunal had already determined, in February 2023, that those comments amounted to harassment under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010, which provides that a person harasses another if they engage in unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic and the conduct has the purpose or effect of violating the other person’s dignity, or of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. The BSB charged this as a failure to act with integrity, as behaviour likely to diminish public trust, and as harassment of another person on grounds of their disability.

The final and sixth strand concerns two further occasions. The first is a hearing on 1 July 2022 at which she represented the defendant while acting under direct access and with authorisation to conduct litigation. Responding to an application for default judgment, and explaining her client’s delay in filing and serving a defence, she told the court that she had been instructed no more than five days earlier, when she became aware of the hearing. The register records that she knew the court would take that as her first instruction in the claim, and that it was untrue: she had been instructed for a hearing in November 2021, had corresponded with the claimant’s solicitor between January and May 2022, and had in fact been instructed for the July hearing seven days beforehand. She told the court that very little correspondence had been sent to her by the claimant’s solicitor, when she had received at least 10 emails from him directly and two sent on his behalf, and had replied to at least five. She told the court that she did not know the defence had not been filed and served, when she had emailed the court and the claimant’s solicitor on 17 May 2022 saying that she would file a defence and counterclaim, and on 22 May had asked for a seven day extension in order to do so. The register records the first and third of those statements as made dishonestly, and the second as one she knew to be misleading.

The second occasion is 17 August 2022. She drafted an application for relief from sanctions in her client’s name, together with supporting documents including an unsigned witness statement in the client’s name, and emailed them to the Family Court and to the other party stating that they were sent on her client’s behalf. She had no instructions to do any of it. The client did not know, had not approved it, and had no input into what the documents said. The register charges that as a failure to observe the duty to the court, a failure to act in the client’s best interests, behaviour likely to diminish public trust, a failure to provide a competent standard of work and service and to promote fearlessly and by all proper and lawful means the client’s best interests, a failure to take reasonable steps to manage her practice competently so as to achieve compliance with her legal and regulatory obligations, and as recklessly misleading or attempting to mislead the court, because sending the documents represented to the court, without saying so, that they had been drafted on the client’s instructions.

The outcome is disbarment. The BSB’s statement confirms that the tribunal ordered that she be disbarred, that the sentence has still to take effect, and that the findings remain subject to appeal. The register shows how the elements sit across the three entries: disbarment on two of them, suspension for 10 months on two and for nine months on the third, and on each of them a requirement that any return to practice depends on satisfactory proof of capacity to practise from a mental health professional approved by the BSB. Costs of £7,226.44 were ordered.

Competence mapping (BSB Professional Statement for Barristers)

Competence 1.1 requires barristers to uphold the reputation of the Bar and observe their duty to the court in the administration of justice, a duty they must abide by even where it cuts against their own or their client’s interests. Sub point 1.1(b)(i) requires them to ensure that their conduct consistently justifies the trust of clients, colleagues and the public by applying the Core Duties, and in particular the paramount duty to the court. Recording a hearing without the permission of the judge is a direct breach of that duty. Competence 1.17 expects barristers to know how to conduct themselves appropriately in court, which the statement explains as observing the formalities of proceedings and following the established conventions of each forum where they represent clients. A recording made in the knowledge that there was no entitlement to make it is not a convention misunderstood; competence 1.16(d) obliges barristers to behave ethically and act in accordance with the Code of Conduct and other applicable rules, and that is the competence which was not exercised.

The findings about the hearing on 1 July 2022 engage the same paramount duty by another route. Competence 2.2 requires barristers to be honest in their dealings with others, and 2.2(c) puts that as ensuring that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, any information they give is accurate, true and not likely to mislead. What that hearing shows is how ordinary the setting for such a failure can be. A barrister under pressure to explain her client’s delay gave the court an account of when she had been instructed, of how much correspondence she had received and of what she knew about the defence, and each account was wrong in a way which happened to help her, and probably her client too. Competence 1.5(m) expects barristers to be able to explain and justify their analysis and evaluation, competence 1.10 expects them to make sound judgements in their work, and 1.10(c) requires them to take responsibility for their decisions. Read with 1.1(b)(i), this is where the duty to the court and the duty of honesty meet.

The events of 17 August 2022 produce the plainest competence findings in the whole case, and they are worth dwelling on, because nobody was misled about the law and no rule was obscure. The client was simply left out of her own case. Competence 3.1 requires barristers to understand and exercise their duty to act in the best interests of their client, and the statement spells out at 3.1(b) that this means identifying the client’s best interests in accordance with the client’s lawful instructions, and at 3.1(d) that it means not acting contrary to those instructions. An application and a witness statement drafted, signed off and filed with no instructions at all is that competence absent rather than misapplied, and 3.1(a) requires a competent standard of work and service to each client. Competence 3.5(b) requires barristers to inform clients in a timely manner of key facts and issues, including key dates, risks and progress towards objectives. Competence 3.6 is the most pointed of them, because it deals with the very arrangement this barrister was working under: it requires a good awareness of the additional responsibilities which arise in direct access cases, and 3.6(a) requires barristers to adapt their communication and handling of the matter so that public access clients are fully informed of the actions being taken on their behalf and of the purpose and possible consequences of those actions. A public access client learning after the event that an application and a witness statement in her own name had been filed is the opposite of that.

Two further competences reach the same conduct from the practice management side. Competence 4.3(a) requires barristers to clarify instructions so as to agree the scope and objectives of the work, and 4.3(g) to monitor and keep relevant others informed of progress. Competence 4.2(a) requires competence in all aspects of their work, including organisation, management of practice and risk. The register frames its charge in the same terms. Behind all of it sits competence 2.1, which requires barristers to act with the utmost integrity and independence at all times, in the interests of justice, representing clients with courage, perseverance and fearlessness. A witness statement carries the client’s name and is read as the client’s own account. Putting words into one that the client has never seen fails that competence at its foundation, and it is why the register treats the filing as a reckless misleading of the court.

The way the barrister interacted with those engaged to support her is not a conduct question sitting alongside the competence issues; it is competence as well. Competence 4.5 requires barristers to maintain the confidentiality of their clients’ affairs, adopting secure technology where appropriate, with 4.5(a) requiring them to identify how they will act in accordance with the rules on the confidentiality and security of information relating to third parties, including current and former clients, and 4.5(b) requiring compliance with relevant data protection requirements. A set of appeal papers sent to a personal email account, with no confidentiality obligation in place, is that competence not exercised, and the information exposed in that way belonged to the client.

Competence 3.2(f), delegate to and supervise others effectively, runs through three of the four groups of particulars. Transcription of an unlawfully made recording was delegated to employees. An advocates’ meeting in care proceedings was delegated to somebody the barrister knew was not qualified to attend it, and the cost of that fell on the client, whose position could not be taken, and on the other party, who had no one to discuss the issues with and had to attend again on the morning of a five day final hearing. Competences 3.1 and 3.1(a), already engaged above, apply here too. Competence 4.2(a) requires competence in all aspects of a barrister’s work, including organisation, management of practice and risk, and the statement spells out that competent organisation includes keeping accurate records, observing deadlines and using resources effectively. Competence 4.4(a) requires barristers to contribute to the efficient operation of the workplace, including by creating effective support systems. A practice which relied on employees to transcribe recordings that should never have been made, and on an unqualified person to attend a hearing appointment, had no such systems.

The harassment finding engages competence 2.3, which requires barristers to be aware and active in the pursuit of equality and respect for diversity, not tolerating unlawful discrimination in themselves or in others. Sub point 2.3(a) requires them to actively observe and uphold the law on equality, diversity and discrimination, and 2.3(c) to take active steps to act fairly and inclusively and show respect to others. Competence 3.4 requires barristers to treat all people with respect and courtesy regardless of their background or circumstances, and 3.4(a) calls for suitable professional practice, politeness and respect in communications and personal interactions; the statement adds that in their own workplace barristers will treat senior, junior and support colleagues with respect and courtesy. The competence statement therefore requires more than the absence of discrimination. It requires something to be done.

There is a tension in this case which I do not think should pass without comment. The conduct found against this barrister includes ridiculing a former employee’s mental health, in terms an Employment Tribunal had already held to be harassment on grounds of disability. The disciplinary tribunal then made the suspension elements of its order conditional on a mental health professional approved by her regulator confirming her capacity to practise. The register does not explain the basis on which that condition was thought necessary, and I draw no inference about the barrister’s health beyond what the sanction itself records. What the juxtaposition shows is that the same framework works both ways. It treats ill health as something to be assessed, supported and safeguarded when it affects a practitioner’s own fitness, and it treats the mockery of somebody else’s ill health as professional misconduct. A profession cannot ask for the first while tolerating the second.

A closing speech that outran the evidence, and a sanction built around retraining

The register also records a finding against Rajiv Chopra, called in March 2020, with a decision date of 12 August 2026. A five person Disciplinary Tribunal heard the matter in May 2026, adjourned part heard, and imposed an immediate suspension pending its return for sanction. It reconvened on 12 August and suspended him from practice for a minimum of four months, commencing 15 May 2026, and continuing until he provides the BSB with satisfactory proof of completion of 45 hours of CPD pre approved by the BSB. Costs of £660 were ordered in relation to the 12 August hearing; the BSB’s costs for the May hearing were refused because the costs schedule was not served in time. The finding is open to appeal. Unlike the first case, the tribunal’s report of findings and sanction has been published, and it is the most instructive document of the week around competence.

While acting for a defendant in a criminal trial on 8 November 2023, the barrister made statements in his closing speech about witness evidence that were incorrect or misleading, prompting the judge to send the jury out and later give further directions to correct them. He told the jury that a prosecution witness’s glasses were quite thick and looked like prescription glasses, a point never put to the witness in cross examination and unsupported by evidence. The barrister described what a solicitor would typically advise a client at the police station, again without evidential basis. He told the jury that on conviction immigration would kick in and the defendant would be deported, which was misleading because it suggested deportation would follow automatically. He offered to let the jury see witness statements to resolve apparent inconsistencies, which was not legally permissible.

Two charges were brought by the BSB and both were dismissed. The tribunal itself framed a third, cut down charge under rE161, which the barrister admitted and which was found proved. The first charge alleged a want of integrity; the tribunal took the view that an inadvertent transgression does not carry the flavour of dishonesty which a finding of that kind requires. The second was framed on knowledge or recklessness, and the BSB did not prove that the barrister knew his statements were untrue or appreciated that the jury might be misled. The third charge was a breach of Core Duty 5, which provides that a barrister must not behave in a way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in them or in the profession.

What is left, once the integrity and recklessness allegations fall away, is a finding about competence, and the tribunal said so in plain terms. On three of the four submissions it found that the barrister had not addressed his mind to whether the submission was permissible. On the fourth, the witness statements, it found that he believed what he told the jury was true, that the error came from ignorance of the law of evidence, and that the ignorance had not been cured by the time of the tribunal hearing. The tribunal described the closing speech as unstructured, unfocused and ill prepared, declined to accept that it was an uncharacteristic performance, and was not persuaded that ill health explained it. Its conclusion was that the barrister needs a greater understanding of where his duty to his client ends and his duty to the court begins.

The sanction flows from that conclusion, and it is worth setting out because the reasoning is unusually explicit. The tribunal placed the misconduct in the misleading the court group of the BTAS Sanctions Guidance. It assessed culpability as moderate, noting that four misleading submissions were made in one short speech and that they were made to a jury, which cannot answer back. It assessed harm as limited, because the trial judge corrected matters and the trial did not have to be abandoned. That combination placed the case towards the lower end of the middle range of seriousness. An earlier rebuke from the SRA, imposed in 2023 over the contents of an email he had sent while practising as a solicitor, together with his failure to disclose it, were treated as aggravating, alongside a continuing lack of insight. The tribunal then said that suspension alone would not solve the problem, because the problem was that the barrister needed to be more professional and better trained.

That answers a question the barristers’ register cannot. The condition attached to the suspension is not there because CPD had lapsed, and there is no suggestion in the report that his continuing professional development records were out of date. The 45 hours are the remedy the tribunal chose, and they are specified accordingly: at least 20 per cent of the training must involve personal face to face attendance, at least three hours must be training in professional ethics at the Bar, and at least 30 of the 45 hours must be specific to criminal practice and must include a course on the law of evidence. The plan requires the approval of the BSB in advance. The tribunal first proposed mentoring by an experienced criminal practitioner and considered the New Practitioner Programme before settling on this bespoke arrangement.

One feature of that history deserves to be drawn out, because it is a competence point and not a footnote. The rebuke was an SRA matter and the tribunal was a BSB tribunal, and the practitioner had moved from one profession to the other. Competence 2.2(b) requires barristers to be honest about the limits of their knowledge, their experience, their qualifications and their professional status, and a previous regulatory finding forms part of that status. The tribunal did not charge the non disclosure separately. It treated it as going to candour and to insight, which is where it belongs. There is a practical point here for anyone who assumes that a regulator’s published record is permanent and can simply be looked up. The SRA’s own guidance is that a rebuke is published for three years, so a rebuke imposed in 2023 was approaching, or had already passed, the end of its publication period while this tribunal was sitting in 2026. Where a practitioner is regulated, or has been regulated, by more than one body, the disclosure should come from the practitioner.

Competence mapping (BSB Professional Statement for Barristers)

Competence 1.15 requires barristers to have persuasive oral advocacy skills, and its sub points read almost as a description of what went wrong here. Sub point 1.15(a) requires them to thoroughly recall and comprehend, and accurately apply to the matters they are dealing with, the law and procedure relevant to advocacy; the tribunal found an ignorance of the law of evidence which persisted at the hearing. Sub point 1.15(d) requires them to prepare how they will effectively communicate the argument; the speech was found to be unstructured, unfocused and ill prepared. Sub point 1.15(h) requires them to comply with all relevant formalities, which includes the rule that a jury does not see witness statements. Sub point 1.15(k) requires them to deploy advocacy skills efficiently and effectively, in compliance with the Core Duties, notwithstanding that they may be required to act at short notice or under other legitimate pressure. That last sub point matters, because the pressure of a closing speech is something the competence statement expects a barrister to have prepared for, not something which excuses what is said under it.

Competence 1.3 requires barristers to have a knowledge and understanding of the law and procedure relevant to their areas of practice, and 1.3(a) requires them to be able to recall and comprehend the core law and rules of procedure and practice relevant to their area of practice. Criminal practice was this barrister’s area and the law of evidence is core to it. Sub point 1.3(d) requires them to keep their knowledge and skills up to date. The order of 30 hours of criminal CPD including a course on the law of evidence maps onto those two sub points precisely, which is what makes this decision worth reading twice.

Competence 1.16(b) requires barristers to recognise potential ethical situations and identify ethical issues. The tribunal’s recurring finding was that the barrister did not address his mind to whether what he was about to say was permissible, and that is 1.16(b) not exercised. It is a different failure from knowing a rule and choosing to break it, and it calls for a different answer. Competence 1.10 expects barristers to make sound judgements in their work, with 1.10(c) requiring them to take responsibility for their decisions, and competence 1.5(m) expects them to be able to explain and justify their analysis and evaluation; the tribunal found the evidence he gave about his own submissions confusing, inconsistent and overly defensive.

Competence 2.2(c) requires barristers to ensure that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, any information they give is accurate, true and not likely to mislead. It is worth noticing that this sub point does not depend on knowing that something is false. Four unsupported assertions in one closing speech engage it whether or not the barrister realised at the time, which is precisely why the charge that survived was the one that did not require knowledge. Competence 1.17 expects barristers to know how to conduct themselves appropriately in court, and a submission to a jury which the judge has to correct from the bench is not that.

The competences which speak to the remedy are 2.5 and 2.6. Competence 2.5 calls for a reflective approach to work, enabling a barrister to correct errors and admit mistakes, with 2.5(a) requiring them to recognise the limitations of personal knowledge and skills and act to resolve the situation, and 2.5(c) requiring them to identify their errors of judgement, omissions and mistakes and take appropriate action. Competence 2.6 requires barristers to practise with adaptability and flexibility, by being self aware and self directed, recognising and acting upon the continual need to maintain and develop their knowledge and skills, with 2.6(b) requiring them to identify strengths and areas for development and take positive steps to address them. The tribunal’s finding of a continuing lack of insight is 2.5 and 2.6 read together, and its CPD order is the tribunal doing for the barrister what those competences require a barrister to do for himself.

SRA regulatory disposals this week

Two SRA outcomes were published. The first is a notification, published on 13 August 2026, that on 6 August the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal considered and approved an agreed outcome in respect of Toby Richard Matthews, who was at Axiom Ince Limited at the time of the matters giving rise to it, and that he was struck off the Roll; the notification gives no account of the conduct found proved, so I will analyse that decision here once the full judgment is published.

The second is a regulatory settlement agreement with a firm, Haworth & Gallagher, which was fined £25,000, with costs of £600, following a desk based review by the SRA’s anti money laundering supervision team. It is worth setting out what the firm did and did not do, because the detail is more instructive than the label. Between 1 February 2018 and 1 September 2025 the firm did not maintain policies, controls and procedures capable of mitigating and managing the money laundering and terrorist financing risks it had itself identified, and did not review and update them, contrary to regulation 19 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017. It also did not carry out adequate or timely client and matter risk assessments in a number of matters, and during the investigation it identified a further 89 live client files on which no risk assessment had been done at all, contrary to regulations 28(12) and 28(13). The firm had a risk assessment process; on 89 files nobody had used it. The agreement records that the deficiencies exposed the firm to an increased level of risk, particularly in conveyancing, which it describes as a recognised high risk area.

The mitigation is recorded and it matters. The agreement records that there was no evidence of harm to consumers or third parties and a low risk of repetition, that the firm did not benefit financially, and that it assisted throughout and had compliant documents in place before the desk based review concluded. The basic penalty of £28,177 was reduced to £25,000 accordingly. The agreement also records that the firm had compliant procedures in place under the 2007 regulations, and that it introduced new ones roughly seven months after the 2017 regulations came into force, so this was not a firm which had never engaged with the obligation. The fact that the process existed but nobody used it contributed to the firm’s downfall.

Competence mapping (SRA Statement of Solicitor Competence)

Competence A2d, maintaining an adequate and up to date understanding of relevant law, policy and practice, is the starting point, because these obligations had been in force since 2017 and were still not met in full in 2025. Competence A5a requires solicitors to assess information to identify key issues and risks, and A5c to evaluate the quality and reliability of information; applying this to the firm’s client base is what a client and matter risk assessment is for. Competence B1c, recognising when additional information is needed, is the point at which a file should have generated more questions and did not. Competence D2 requires solicitors to keep, use and maintain accurate, complete and clear records; a risk assessment which is not recorded cannot be relied on by anyone else. Competence D3c, applying the rules of professional conduct to accounting and financial matters, covers the obligation itself, and competence D3a, demonstrating an adequate understanding of the commercial, organisational and financial context in which they work and their role in it, is why a compliance officer’s attention to this is not administration but a risk management obligation.

Closing thoughts

The first thing the Bar findings show this week is how far the harm travelled. It would be easy to read the recordings case as a workplace case, because the people asked to transcribe the recordings, the person who received the appeal papers and the person sent to the advocates’ meeting were all employees. That reading is too narrow. The hearings which were recorded were the hearings of families in family proceedings, and none of those parties consented, nor did the judge. The papers sent to a private email address were a client’s confidential papers. The unqualified person sent to the advocates’ meeting left the client’s position unrepresented and the other parties with no one to discuss the issues with, so that a meeting held to narrow the issues before a five day final hearing had to be held again on the morning of the trial. The court, the client, the other parties and the employees were each affected.

The second is that the people who work for a self-employed practitioner sit inside the regulatory duties rather than outside them. The Professional Statement anticipates each of the situations in that case: 3.2(f) on delegating to and supervising others effectively, 4.5 on the confidentiality and security of client information, 3.4 on treating people with respect and courtesy. These are not peripheral competences and they are not about being pleasant. They decide whether the people around a practitioner can do their work properly, and whether the client is genuinely served by the arrangements a practitioner has made.

The third is the client’s place in her own case, and it is part of the thread I would most like practitioners to take from this week. A client whose confidential appeal papers went to a private email address was not asked. A client whose advocates’ meeting was covered by an unqualified stand in was not served. A client in whose name an application and a witness statement were drafted and filed had not been asked, told or consulted. Competence 3.6(a) is explicit that public access clients must be fully informed of the actions being taken on their behalf and of the purpose and possible consequences of those actions, and competence 3.5(b) requires clients to be told key facts, dates, risks and progress in a timely way. Those are not administrative courtesies. They are the competences which keep a case the client’s own.

That thread should be balanced with the fourth theme, present in both Bar cases from different perspectives: that the duty to the court is paramount, and it is not satisfied by obtaining an accurate record or by making a persuasive point. A recording made without the judge’s permission may capture a hearing perfectly and still breach that duty, because the duty concerns the authority of the court and not the accuracy of the record. A closing speech is submission and not evidence, and asserting facts which were never put to a witness fails the same duty from the other side. I would not want to suggest that either distinction is a difficult one to hold. The Professional Statement for Barristers sets them out expressly because they are foundational, and a profession which allows them to blur loses its ability to explain itself to the public.

The fifth is the most useful thing in this week’s material for anyone thinking about how competence ought to be regulated. A tribunal dismissed the integrity and recklessness charges, found that what remained was a failure of competence, and then said that suspending the barrister would not fix it. It ordered targeted retraining instead: ethics, criminal practice, the law of evidence, a plan approved in advance. That is remediation reasoning, and it is welcome to see it set out so clearly. It arrived, though, after a contested hearing, an adjournment, a suspension and a disciplinary record. Every element of that training was available years earlier, at a fraction of the cost to the barrister, to the regulator and to the defendant whose trial had to be corrected from the bench.

Where practitioners are dealing with the stress of investigation or tribunal proceedings, LawCare’s free and confidential helpline, 0800 279 6888, remains available to anyone in the legal sector.

A lesson this week’s decisions teach: when a disciplinary tribunal concludes that the problem is competence rather than character, it can reach for training rather than punishment alone, and nothing prevents a practitioner reaching for the same remedy long before a tribunal has to order it. What is needed, however, is self reflection as required at competence 2.5, and intellectual humility.

Beyond Competence Limited, for information and educational purposes only. This digest does not constitute legal advice.