UK barrister who asked client for drugs jailed
By Law Society Gazette
Published
1 min read
Hendron was representing a man who was arrested in 2021 on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of class A, B and C drugs.
A British barrister who asked a man he was engaged to represent for drugs has been jailed for 14 months.
Henry Hendron, 42, was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court after he admitted to three counts of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence and one count of possessing crystal meth, a class A controlled drug.
Hendron was representing a man who was arrested in 2021 on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of class A, B and C drugs. When his phone was examined by police, messages from Hendron asking the man to supply him with drugs were found. Following a police investigation, further evidence was found, from 2020, indicating Hendron was purchasing drugs from yet another client he was representing.
Detective inspector Lewis Sanderson of the Met’s specialist crime south syndicate said: ‘At the time of his arrest Hendron was a serving barrister. The behaviour displayed by Hendron, while acting for the Bar, was unacceptable, unethical and illegal.
‘Actions like this can tarnish the reputation of all those involved in the criminal justice system and the whole team was determined to bring him to account.’
Hendron, called to the bar in 2006, was reprimanded and prohibited from undertaking public access work for two years by the British Bar Standards Board. The sanction, which came into effect in June 2021, following a five-person disciplinary tribunal finding of professional misconduct against Hendron.
His current practising status, according to the BSB website, is suspended.
