A former judge who arrived in Britain on a West Indian cargo ship 50 years ago has won a High Court battle after he was convicted of harassing his ex-wife.
Lincoln Crawford, 71, was accused of sending ‘threatening and abusive’ text messages to the mother of his child and her partner.
An order was imposed in 2006 and he was accused of breaking the rules of the by contacting Bronwen Jenkins and her Dominic Buttimore via letter and email.
He was later convicted of harassment and breaching a restraining order.
Lincoln Crawford, 71, was convicted of harassing his ex-wife after he sent her text messages, letters and emails
Mr Crawford was reprimanded by a barristers’ disciplinary tribunal which concluded he had engaged in conduct likely to diminish public trust in the profession.
Bosses at the Bar Standards Board, which regulates barristers, complained that a reprimand was an unduly lenient penalty.
But two judges have dismissed the challenge following a High Court hearing in London.
Lord Justice Hickinbottom and Mr Justice Green concluded that the disciplinary tribunal imposed an appropriate sanction.
They explained in a written ruling how Mr Crawford had been brought up in a rural village in Trinidad by his grandparents and, ‘determined to make good’, bought a one-way ticket to England in 1967.
Mr Crawford had taken A levels, then a law degree at Brunel University and become a barrister a decade after arriving in Britain.
He had gone on to work as a judge, a commissioner with the Commission for Racial Equality, been a member of the Inner London Education Authority and was awarded the OBE in 1998.
The former judge sent messages to his wife Bronwen Jenkins (left) and her partner, Dominic Buttimore (right)
Judges said Mr Crawford’s marriage had broken down and acrimonious divorce proceedings followed.
After he was charged in 2005, the former judge continued worker as a Recorder and was paid up to £500 a day.
He arrived in Britain after leaving Trinidad when he was 18 and was called to the Bar in 1977. Mr Crawford worked as a security guard to earn money to pay for his studies.