A leading lawyer could be kicked out of the prestigious Faculty of Advocates for sending “extremely demeaning” text messages about a rape crisis charity boss.
Brian McConnachie, KC, boasted he would have sex with Sandy Brindley “just to have something over her”.
A disciplinary committee said his comments were “akin to blackmail”. It added he was guilty of “serious and reprehensible” behaviour in a series of salacious texts, including sending a sexually explicit picture of himself from the toilets of a high court minutes after defending a rape accused.
He could now be thrown out of the Faculty of Advocates and suspended from practicing as a lawyer for up to five years.
McConnachie, a former high court prosecutor, is one of Scotland’s highest Legal Aid earners and has acted in some of the country’s most high-profile cases.
He had sent a text on October 27, 2020, claiming another KC, referred to as Mr A, had told him he wanted to have sex with Ms Brindley, CEO of Rape Crisis Scotland.
McConnachie wrote Mr A had “once said to me he’d s**g Sandy Brindley”. Secondly, he wrote: “I might s**g her, just to have something over her, but I wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Previously, a Faculty of Advocates complaints committee said a written reprimand was enough punishment and that McConnachie had experienced “considerable embarrassment”.
But after a female whistleblower condemned the decision as a “slap on the wrist”, she lodged an appeal which was upheld yesterday by the disciplinary committee.
The faculty complaints committee had dismissed his sexual comments about Ms Brindley as merely “wishes about hypothetical sexual activity”.
But in its highly critical judgement, the committee disagreed with those findings. It said the messages had been “extremely demeaning” of Ms Brindley, whose role meant she worked closely with the legal profession.
It said: “The message further suggests that the respondent would be prepared to have a sexual relationship with a woman then use that fact to exert pressure on her in future. That, in itself is, in our opinion, clearly not the manner in which a reputable member of the faculty should behave.
“Furthermore, we regard such conduct – involving the suggestion of a willingness to engage in something akin to blackmail – as plainly serious and reprehensible”.
Last night, a spokeswoman for Rape Crisis Scotland said the charity welcomed the new judgement. She said: “Rape Crisis Scotland welcome the judgement and agree wholly with it’s findings on Mr McConnachie’s sexist behaviour.”
The ruling also criticised McConnachie for being disloyal to Mr A, a fellow criminal advocate and said his claims about his colleague could be considered defamatory.
The committee condemned McConnachie for sending the WhatsApp messages to the whistleblower on October 27 and 30, 2020 – despite not having, as he claimed, “an intimate and personal” relationship with her.
It dismissed his defence that the messages were of a “private” nature and that it would be against his human rights for it to be held against him.
On October 27, 2020, the same date as McConnachie sent the text about Ms Brindley, he also sent an explicit picture from toilets at Livingston High Court.
The previous complaints committee had said this was not professional misconduct as the picture was sent at 4.01pm – a minute after the court day usually ended and it couldn’t be proven he was still engaged by a client.
However, the disciplinary committee disagreed and said too much emphasis and been placed on the timing of the message and McConnachie was an “officer of the court” engaged in a professional capacity.
The judgement said McConnachie “would be present in Livingston High Court for the purposes of his professional duties; that seems obvious”.
It added: “It is wrong, in our opinion, to regard professional duties as terminating at the moment when the court rises.”
It also said that as both the picture and the message demeaning Ms Brindley were of a sexual nature and sent on the same day, they were related.
The judgement found McConnachie had brought the faculty into disrepute and was guilty of professional misconduct – and not the lesser unsatisfactory conduct the complaints committee had previously deemed his behaviour to be.
At the disciplinary hearing, held last December, counsel acting for the dean of the faculty also agreed McConnachie’s behaviour was professional misconduct.
In another text, McConnachie referred to a client as a “lying c***” and was found to have breached his duty of confidence.
The complaints committee had only found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional misconduct but the new judgement said it was not a harsh enough reflection of his actions. It said the messages about his client were “a clear breach of the duties” that an advocate owes to a client.
It added this was “sufficiently serious”, when taken with the other WhatsApp messages, to lead to the conclusion that the totality of the respondent’s conduct amounted to professional misconduct.
The judgement continued: “Taken as a whole, we consider that the combination of messages sent clearly disclosed that the respondent was in the habit of acting in a manner that did not meet the standard that could reasonably be expected of a competent and reputable advocate.”
The judgement concluded it was important the messages relating to his client were sent to a person he didn’t have an intimate relationship with and could have been passed to anyone.
It also condemned him for putting salacious and inappropriate remarks in to WhatsApp messages which could remain indefinitely. The penalty McConnachie faces will be decided at a later date.
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