EXCLUSIVE Barrister brothers both banned from Bar

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In a possible legal first, a pair of barrister brothers have both been disbarred, RollOnFriday understands.

Jo Sidhu was expelled from the profession after his appeal was dismissed in January, and Ravi Sidhu was disbarred in November last year.

Jo Sidhu, the former Chair of the Criminal Bar, was found to have behaved inappropriately when he persuaded a young woman to stay overnight in his hotel room during her mini pupillage. He convinced the mini-pupil to sleep on his bed by placing cushions down the middle as a “barricade”.

Ravi Sidhu was disbarred for sending invoices to a client on chambers-headed paper which stated his personal bank account details. He was paid £40k by a “vulnerable person who had recently been bereaved” who was “extremely surprised and distressed” when she learned that Ravi’s work for her ”was not undertaken under chambers”.

Ravi Sidhu’s tribunal found that he had “dishonestly created the misleading impression” that the matter was being conducted through his chambers, and that his motivation “was to avoid paying chambers’ money in relation to fees received”.

In his spare time Ravi wrote a prophetic novel, 'Call This Justice', about a rule-breaking CPS prosecutor. The blurb referred to Ravi's childhood in Southall and his late father, Pritam Sidhu, "a celebrated Punjabi writer".

_{The publishers may need to update the bit about Ravi being a practising barrister.}

A glowing profile of Jo Sidhu in the Hindustan Times also mentions his father, Pritam, a "renowned Punjabi author". RollOnFriday asked both brothers for comment via Jo Sidhu's PR representative, but they did not respond.

Sources also blessed ROF with links to TikTok clips which show Jo and Ravi attending a wedding celebration in the midst of their regulatory troubles:

_{Comparing notes for the disciplinary tribunal?}

ROF is pretty sure, without having researched the matter at all, that they are the first sibling barristers to have both fallen foul of the Bar regulator.

RoF was also tipped off that Ravi can now be hired as an actor, and advertises his services dressed up as a barrister:

Ravi

Last year, sisters at Freshfields caused a stir, but for different reasons.

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Comments

Message just in from Lord Lester: “I like Jo and Ravi!”

Please provide us with the Tik tok link 😎

@9.51 - why? Unlike you, they have been found guilty of wrongdoing by the BSB.

Surely you must get a half mark for the Hendron twins - one disbarred, the other reprimanded and seems to have disappeared from practice?

"Message in from Lord Lester" person - do piss off; you're tedious and entirely lacking in wit and relevance.

oh well, never mind.

Response just in from Lord Lester to Anonymous 27 February 26 10:24: “I like Jo because, like me, he was found to have behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner towards women; and I like Ravi because, like me, he is a bit dodgy!”

Message just in from Lord Lester in response to Anonymous 27 February 26 11:14 - “Would you like to join the House of Lords?”

Fantastic article Jamie.

@11.24 - no, the BSB didn't find you guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

@Anonymous 27 February 26 11:44 - the BSB didn’t overturn the findings of the House of Lords that Lord Lester sexually harassed his victim and offered her a peerage in exchange for sex.

The fact he has a pr representative still speaks volumes.

RoF I have done some research for you..

Two members of the Bajwa family (Naseem Bajwa and Azfar Bajwa) father and brother respectively of Ali Naseem Bajwa KC who practises out of QEB Hollis Whiteman and who sits as Recorder. Ali’s dad and brother both got kicked out of the bar for dishonesty. No doubt Ali would say he’s the exception that proves the rule but it’s still not a great look for the Bajwa clan, apple doesn’t fall from from the tree..

Two disbarments here

https://www.tbtas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/hearings/137172/BAJWA-Approved-Report-of-Finding-and-Sanction-240124-pdf.pdf

https://www.tbtas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/hearings/4593/Approved-Report-of-Finding-and-Sanction-A-Bajwa-.pdf

Terrible fall from grace. My twins were admitted on the same day which is probably unusual and was nicer news a couple of years ago.

@11.25 - see, 11:14, point proven.

@Anonymous 27 February 26 11:14 - message from us all to the person telling Lord Lester to piss off: “do piss off; you're tedious and entirely lacking in wit and relevance.”

I have read this so many times today and have not stopped laughing. Blinding articke! 🤣🤣🤣

Anonymous 27 February 26 10:50 - he hasn't, I was against him the other day. He has, however, changed his name...

Lord Lester had a terrible fall from grace, too.

@Anonymous 27 February 26 13:30 - what point? And where is your evidence that it is proven?

So, have I got this right, Lord Lester was after a long and twisting series of events cleared of all wrongdoing by the BSB?

Which as we all know is the gold standard of legal regulators.

I genuinely thought this was going to be a far more interesting story about them getting into a punch up in a local around Chancery Lane and being trespassed from returning.

Anonymous 27 February 26 20:14: message just in from Lord Lester - “No, I was not cleared by the BSB. The decision of the House of Lords - that I had sexually harassed my victim and offered to obtain her a peerage in exchange for sex - remains.

Twin Troughs one might say? 😏

Now only to be seen in Panto at the local Scout Hut. Legal career? IT’S BEHIND YOU! Oh yes it is.

🤧

What a wally, ol' Ravi is in breach of core duty 5 and legal services by playing dress up.

"@Anonymous 27 February 26 11:14 - message from us all to the person telling Lord Lester to piss off: “do piss off; you're tedious and entirely lacking in wit and relevance.”"

@[email protected] - see, 11:14, point proven.

@[email protected] - not according to the BSB he didn't.

"@Anonymous 27 February 26 13:30 - what point? And where is your evidence that it is proven?"

@[email protected] - see, 11:14, point proven.

One of the major criticisms of the investigation into the allegations against Lord Lester was that he was not given the opportunity to cross-examine his accuser. This omission was a fundamental one in respect of the process being fair.

@[email protected] - spot on

@Anonymous 01 March 26 09:54. The Committee, which included two retired Law Lords, concluded that the absence of cross examination was not unfair, and concluded overall that the process was fair - conclusions which were endorsed by the House of Lords. So we know the process was fair.

@[email protected] - there was no decision by the House of Lords other than a vote that the process was unfair. And you were cleared by the BSB.

@17.29 - actually no such decision was endorsed by the House of Lords. Which is unsurprising, as it is generally accepted that the right of cross examination is fundamental to natural justice. So we know that the process was unfair.

@Anonymous 02 March 26 17:29: exactly.

The Committee, which comprised two retired Law Lords, in its report rejected the notion that cross examination is fundamental to natural justice - a notion that Lord Lester himself had rejected:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldprivi/252/25203.htm

"23.We accept that a proper testing of the evidence by an impartial adjudicator who listens to all sides is essential to natural justice and fairness. But we simply disagree that cross-examination is inherent in the very notion of fairness. Cross-examination is a particular technique, honed by generations of lawyers versed in the common law tradition, but by no means a fundamental feature of all systems of law, and indeed cross-examination may be inappropriate for dealing with complaints of sexual harassment.

24.In arriving at this conclusion, we reflected on the cogent argument of Lord Lester himself in this House in 2009 in a case where the lawyers for Lord Taylor of Blackburn argued that Lord Taylor had been denied basic procedural safeguards guaranteed by domestic and international law, including the right to test the evidence against him through cross-examination. Lord Lester then argued that it was entirely misguided to say (amongst other things) that cross-examination was an essential safeguard in proceedings involving possible suspension from the House. Lord Lester was right in that case, and it is equally true of the present case."

The Committee's report was later put to the House of Lords, which by motion approved it.

So we know that the process by which Lord Lester was found to have committed sexual harassment and grave abuse of position, was a fair one. Not least because Old Mo had himself endorsed such a process!

@[email protected] - the committee had become heavily invested in the Commissioner and the investigation, so it is hardly surprising that they said they thought the process was fair. The issue is that it was objectively unfair. As Lord Woolf said, Lord Lester wasn't given a fair crack of the whip. The House of Lords agreed that the process was unfair, they voted to that effect.

The fact that Lord Lester argued the previous decade that cross examination isn't necessary does nothing for your argument. It is often not until people are the victim of an unfair process that they realise that it is unfair. It was only after after falling victim to an unfair process that he realised the importance of cross examination. It is highly likely that were the Comissioner or the Committee members ever the subject of a process which excluded cross-examination, that they too would want the opportunity to cross-examine the complainant and would realise the unfairness of denying this opportunity.