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A First in British Courts |
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Tuesday, 16 October 2007 |
Barrister jailed for 12 months
A barrister became the first member of his profession to be jailed for perverting the course of justice yesterday after sending bogus court documents to his client's opponent. Bruce Hyman, a radio and theatre producer who retrained as a barrister, engineered a fraud in an apparent effort to discredit the former husband of a friend he was representing in a family court case.Hyman, who is also a scriptwriter and produced the radio version of Douglas Adams' cult classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was jailed for 12 months at Bristol Crown Court but will be released on parole after six months. Hyman, who was inspired to take up law while producing the Radio 4 legal programme Unreliable Evidence, fabricated evidence that could have led to an innocent man being jailed.
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Last September, Hyman was representing Karen Sanders Young, a former radio executive, in a child custody case when he sent a fake legal document to incriminate her ex-husband Simon Eades, a former Wall Street banker. The document was a bogus legal judgment, pretending to be from Families Need Fathers, a charity campaigning for father's rights.
The email sent from what Hyman thought was an untraceable address, appeared to support Mr Eades' claim that he should be granted greater access to his child. Believing the document to be genuine, Mr Eades presented it to the judge at the family court in Taunton, Somerset. Hyman then stood up and accused Mr Eades of forgery.
Faced with accusations that he was attempting to pervert the course of justice and the possibility he might be jailed, the computer literate Mr Eades returned home in a "near hysterical" state, and set about trying to prove his innocence.
In an interview Mr Eades said:, "I did some research on the Net about tracking emails and tracked the ones I had been sent to an internet posting service in Manchester. They released the number of the internet shop on Tottenham Court Road, I called the shop and, within five or six hours, they emailed me saying staff had recalled a gentleman coming into the store on the day the emails were sent. He'd not bought anything but had asked to use their internet services. They then said they'd got him on CCTV and sent me some stills. I nearly fell off my chair."
The footage was passed to police, ultimately leading to Hyman's arrest.
"Its extraordinary to me on a human level, its unprecedented on a legal level and it's astonishing on any respect," Mr Eades added.
 Michael Meeke, QC, prosecuting, said that if Dr Eades had not been so computer literate and able to find the origin of the e-mail, he may well have been prosecuted. Hyman’s lawyer, Paul Dunkels, said his client had been depressed after being rejected for a permanent post at his London chambers in 2005 and had turned to drugs and alcohol that clouded his judgment. He added: "He has destroyed his career in the law and damaged beyond repair his prospects of returning to his previous career as a radio producer."
No fewer than 25 friends and colleagues from the media and the law, including Sir Mark Potter, the president of the high court's family division, and Denis Nowlan, network manager of BBC Radio 4, gave character references for Hyman. The actor Maureen Lipman consoled members of his family outside court.
In passing sentence Judge Tom Crowther said: "It is a serious crime apart from being appalling professional misconduct. On this matter you can only be punished by a term of prison." Judge Crowther told Hyman that a 12-month jail term was the minimum he could impose. He also ordered him to pay £3,000 compensation to Mr Eades and £3,457 costs.
Hyman, also known for working with the likes of Anthony Minghella, Maureen Lipman and Clive Anderson, is married with four children. He reportedly led a "flamboyant" social life, mixing with London's rich and famous from the world of stage and radio. He graduated from Oxford University with first class honours before launching his own production company.
Hyman reportedly recently sold a chalet in the Alps, where he held "eagerly anticipated" dinner parties. |
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