Legal chambers crisis as star barrister accused of groping

One thing is certain: they are holier than thou at Matrix Chambers, the influential firm of superstar ‘human rights’ barristers which rarely misses an opportunity to trumpet its credentials as a bastion of high-minded political correctness.

Founded in 2000 by Cherie Blair and a ‘dream team’ of 21 mostly Left-wing colleagues, the firm grew rich and famous cashing-in on the explosion of highly lucrative litigation spawned by the Blair government’s controversial Human Rights Act.

‘Fearless, formidable, and always highly aggressive,’ its members proceeded to ‘shape the modern human rights industry’, in the words of an admiring QC, righting perceived wrongs, taking on authority, and seeking to advance the causes of equality and liberalism in some of the most important and contentious court cases of recent times.

Its now-95-strong cohort of brilliant (if occasionally pompous) lawyers occupy one of London’s great ivory towers: a Victorian former police station situated a short stroll from the Old Bailey and Royal Courts of Justice.

Here, no fewer than three Sirs, two lords and ten professors currently earn their shilling, including several members of the Left-wing establishment, from (Lord) Ken MacDonald, Director of Public Prosecutions during the Blair era, and (Sir) Paul Jenkins QC, who became the New Labour government’s most senior legal official in 2006.

Among the other ‘big beasts’ are Hugh Tomlinson QC, a friend of actor Hugh Grant and founder of the anti-Press lobby group Hacked Off, Lord Brennan QC, a Labour peer, and Philippe Sands QC, the Guardian contributor and high-profile campaigner against the Iraq War.

Working for Matrix is less a job, and more a noble calling — or so this lot would have you believe.

So it goes that, on the front page of its website, the firm trumpets its credentials as a forward-thinking institution that promotes ‘equality’ where ‘diversity and accessibility are widely championed and outdated practice is challenged’.

Among the ‘core values’ is a commitment to being ‘dedicated to the promotion and advancement of women’.

How unfortunate, therefore, and how humiliating, that this bastion of progressive metropolitan liberalism should be accused of cynically betraying those ‘core values’.

For Matrix Chambers was this week revealed to be in a state of virtual crisis over the flawed — and some might say deeply hypocritical — way it handled a high-profile and extremely serious claim of workplace sexual harassment that occurred on its own doorstep.

Amid the fallout, an array of senior female staff members have filed a written complaint alleging widespread sexual harassment by colleagues. It claims that inappropriate comments, innuendo, (and worse), are routinely directed at them by ‘senior men’ on its payroll. Official reports looking at the issue have talked of ‘institutional failings’.

In a surreal twist, another internal email leaked this week accused women who had publicly voiced concerns about sexual harassment of being ‘deeply unsisterly’ because they were damaging Matrix’s reputation.

Ludicrously, it compared them to complaining farm animals, saying: ‘Women must help empower other women, not lead them down the path bleating.’

At the centre of this ugly controversy is one of the firm’s founders and most high-profile members of staff: Benjamin Emmerson QC, a ‘goliath’ of his trade who’s been an eminent human rights lawyers for over two decades.

Famed for his advocacy in a string of headline-grabbing cases, representing people such as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the widow of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, whose death by poisoning in London was blamed on Vladimir Putin, the ‘smart and charming’ Emmerson was once said to be the model for Bridget Jones’s dashing lawyer-lover, Mr Darcy.

His glamorous social set includes one-time colleague Amal Clooney and her husband, George.

The divorced father of four’s recent ex-girlfriends include Hollywood siren Ellen Barkin, who was once married to Irish actor Gabriel Byrne.

Last September, however, Emmerson abruptly resigned as lead counsel to the Government’s major child sex abuse inquiry, for which he was paid £1,700 a day from the taxpayer.

The departure was put down to unspecified concerns over his ‘leadership’. However it later emerged that the development had also followed an incident in which a female colleague claimed he’d groped her in a lift, during working hours and against her will, at the inquiry’s headquarters in London.

Emmerson vigorously denied the charge, as did Matrix, which subsequently said an inquiry into the incident by a senior judge had established that he ‘had not committed any act of sexual assault or sexual harassment’.

However, this week it emerged that this statement from a legal firm which is bastion of equality had been — at best — very misleading indeed.

For the inquiry had, in truth, ‘found as fact’ that Emmerson had attempted to either put his hand between his colleague’s legs or down her trousers, and that she had pushed him away.

It had described this conduct as ‘unwanted and of a sexual nature’, but concluded that Emmerson (who has always protested his innocence) was not guilty of either harassment or assault, partly because he honestly believed the women would consent.

Furthermore, it emerged this week that the woman had complained to Matrix that he was harassing her nine months before the lift incident. However, nothing was done.

We shall look at these events in detail later.

In the meantime, female staff — many of whom campaign for women to speak out about workplace harassment — were further galled to receive an email from Matrix management instructing them not to talk about the harassment case, saying ‘discussions of this sort may well prove highly corrosive’.

Though the law firm boasts about having fought honourable court battles over free speech and Press freedom, it decided in the message (which was leaked) to tell Chambers staff they were required to ‘respect the confidentiality’ of Emmerson by giving ‘a no comment response’ to journalists who might ask them about the case.

‘We also ask that you let us know [of any media inquiries], so that we may properly and effectively manage the situation and our organisation, in the interests of all,’ it read. To many, this added to the suspicion of a cover-up.

British lawyers Amal Clooney, left, and Ben Emmerson talk ahead of a press conference with former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed in London

‘It’s impossible to underestimate how angry people are,’ says a source close to the firm. ‘What went on is outrageous. There has been no accountability, and no apology, and no heads have rolled.

‘This is the workplace of some of the most eminent equality lawyers in the world, but when a powerful man at the top of the organisation is accused of serious misconduct by a younger woman, its policies and procedures are in the Dark Ages.’

Several female barristers at the firm are understood to now be helping launch a campaign called Behind The Gown, which says sexual harassment ‘is endemic in our profession’, and plans to use social media to share examples.

Not surprisingly, this saga has been greeted with glee in legal circles, where rival lawyers have long regarded Matrix as too smug for its own good. ‘To say there is a degree of schadenfreude is an understatement,’ is how one human rights QC puts it.

‘Here we have the most preachy, right-on, pompous law firm, which has made small fortunes from discrimination lawsuits, failing to protect female employees in the most egregious way. The hypocrisy is extraordinary.’

To understand such anger, it is important to explain circumstances surrounding the formation of Matrix in 2000, when Cherie Blair and 21 colleagues founded the chambers as a potentially lucrative seam of new cases were expected after the Human Rights Act brought in by the government of her PM husband.

Despite, or perhaps because it was launched with a glamorous party attended by then-PM Tony, the legal media gave Matrix a lukewarm reception.

‘They have already been dubbed “the complaining chambers”,’ wrote one title. ‘They are all the whingers about civil liberties and much of their work will be from complainants.’

Other reports called it a ‘champagne socialist chambers’, ‘Mammon chambers’ or ‘whingers’ set’. The Spectator magazine went further, saying they were ‘leather jacket-wearing thought police’.

Yet for all the sniping, Matrix was hugely successful. It expanded rapidly and took on many high-profile briefs, perhaps most famously that of a Luton schoolgirl who claimed her human rights were violated when her headmistress banned her from wearing a head-to-toe jilbab.

Represented by Mrs Blair, the girl lost her case at the High Court but the verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal — only to then see the House of Lords rule in favour of her school.

By then, such cases (many publicly-funded) had turned Matrix into one of the UK’s most well-remunerated chambers.

In 2006, its members were revealed to have appeared in 35 House of Lords hearings in the previous 12 months, more than double the number of any other firm. Average annual earnings for all Matrix barristers were then £225,000, though senior QCs were taking home more.

Cherie Blair was one of the higher earners, though her reputation was damaged by her husband’s government’s Iraq War, which was bitterly opposed by colleagues.

She left in 2014 to set up Omnia, an international law firm which has — how sweet the irony! — built lucrative connections with a number of foreign despots.

Matrix sailed on. Yet behind the scenes there were ugly rumours that the workplace conduct of some staff failed to live up to the high ideals of the organisation.

There were whispers (never confirmed) that one man had turned up to an office party accompanied by a prostitute. Another reputedly received an informal ban on working alone with juniors. Secretaries and receptionists are said to have been occasionally propositioned.

Then, last year, came the Emmerson case.

Details first emerged in January 2016 when a female Matrix worker, known in subsequent reports as ‘Ms A’, complained to the then chief executive, Lindsay Scott, that Emmerson had subjected her to sexual harassment.

She is understood to have asked for the matter to be dealt with informally. However, nine months later, matters escalated when an ‘unwanted’ incident ‘of a sexual nature’ took place in a lift at the headquarters of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, where Emmerson and the woman were working.

On September 28, the inquiry suspended Emmerson, expressing concern at ‘aspects of his leadership of the counsel team’.

The following day, he resigned, though continued to be paid his £1,700-a-day fee during a ‘handover’ that lasted several weeks. Then, in October, details of the alleged lift incident were revealed for the first time during an investigation by BBC2’s Newsnight.

Cherie Blair, with whom Emmerson helped establish the influential chambers

Matrix responded by ordering a secret inquiry. Its management committee hired David Calvert-Smith, a retired former Director of Public Prosecutions, to carry it out.

Calvert-Smith had no obvious specialist expertise in the field of workplace abuse or sexual harassment, and was not given details of Ms A’s previous complaints.

Perhaps more importantly, given the need for transparency, his report was never published, even in a redacted version, and was not shown to Matrix staff outside the management committee.

When that committee publicly announced that Emmerson had been cleared ‘without hesitation’, there was outrage.

‘A number of Matrix barristers, male and female, knew some details of the case, and took the view that the statement was at best misleading and at worst downright dishonest,’ says a source.

‘Since they knew the woman concerned, they also believed that Matrix was failing to properly deal with harassment claims.’

As a result, several female barristers wrote to the management committee calling for a review, saying: ‘We need to know that if something happened that required us to make a complaint, Matrix is equipped to handle it.’

Stung by the criticism, a sub-committee of senior Matrix lawyers commissioned a second inquiry into the handling of the abuse claims.

This was carried out by Dame Laura Cox, a prominent expert on harassment and equality law. Published in July, and leaked in part this week, its conclusions are damning.

Dame Laura concluded the chambers made a series of egregious errors, including failing to protect Ms A’s well-being and ignoring her initial complaint, and said the actions of senior management were ‘wholly inappropriate’.

She was also hugely critical of the firm’s original public statement exonerating Emmerson.

Adding that institutional failings had caused Ms A severe anxiety and distress, Dame Laura said the terms of reference of Sir David’s inquiry were too narrow, and was highly critical of the decision to appoint him in the first place.

She concluded that he’d been partly hired on the grounds that he ‘would be charging considerably less’ than any other candidate.

She also pointed out that Matrix management took few steps to ensure he had ‘expertise and experience in cases involving sexual harassment or in conducting sexual harassment investigations which require a particular sensitivity, understanding and approach’.

Regarding allegations of sexual harassment in the lift, she noted that Sir David ‘found as a fact’ that Ms A ‘had pushed Ben [Emmerson] away when he tried to put his hand between her legs / down her trousers. The conduct was, on his own findings, unwanted and of a sexual nature’.

Although Sir David decided this did not constitute harassment. Dame Laura said this took the wrong legal approach by failing to consider the Equality Act’s protections for people in the workplace.

‘The management committee’s decision immediately to accept this report was therefore an error,’ she wrote. ‘I consider that they ought to have realised that [Sir David] applied the wrong test and should have invited him to reconsider.’ Dame Laura’s report was filed in July. Since then, from Matrix, there has been silence on the matter.

‘This report highlights serious, institutional failings at an organisation which is supposed to be dedicated to equality,’ says a source close to the Chambers.

‘The management contains some of the most eminent equality lawyers in the country. They have failed abjectly. Yet no heads have rolled and no apologies have been made.’

Emmerson has not commented on recent developments. However, he is understood to deny being guilty of any misconduct, and supporters point out that the Cox report focused on procedure and did not include any examination of first-hand evidence, meaning its author was not in a position to pass judgement over whether there had been harassment.

They add that he was never formally accused by the woman of assault.

Matrix, for its part, is saying nothing. This week, a spokesman declared it ‘does not intend to make any public comment on what are plainly confidential internal matters’.

Perhaps its PR team have other priorities: not long ago, they circulated a press release stating that the British Legal Awards — the industry’s ‘Oscars’ — had decided to short-list them as Chambers of the Year. Apparently, theirs is an industry in which abject hypocrisy pays.