Lord Laming, who chaired the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, will ask an employment tribunal today to strike out a racism claim against him by the black barrister who defended Carole Baptiste, the social worker prosecuted for contempt of court for refusing to give evidence to the inquiry.
In a claim filed at London Central employment tribunal, the barrister, Peter Herbert, accuses the Bar Council of race discrimination and victimisation and Lord Laming of harassing him and aiding the council in discriminating against him.
Mr Herbert, who sits as a part-time judge and employment tribunal chairman, chairs the Society of Black Lawyers, is a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, and has helped to train judges in racial awareness.
A Bar Council disciplinary committee found Mr Herbert guilty last May of breaching the Bar code of conduct which bans barristers from voicing personal opinions to the media in cases in which they are currently acting. He was reprimanded and advised as to his future conduct.
The proceedings followed a complaint from Lord Laming, who objected to Mr Herbert's comments to reporters outside court after Ms Baptiste was found guilty and in a BBC interview the next day.
The barrister said his client had been "hounded", and suggested that institutional racism had been to blame.
Correspondence between the Bar Council and Lord Laming over the complaint shows him pursuing it strenuously.
In a letter to a Bar investigations officer, he argued that it would be "irrelevant, inappropriate and prejudicial" for the panel considering the case to be shown at that stage character references submitted by Mr Herbert from two senior appeal court judges, a former Bar chairman, and the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens.
In Ms Baptiste's case, Mr Herbert claimed he was following his client's instructions in expressing her views and explaining the mitigation he had put forward for her in court. He argued that his use of the words "I think" and "I believe" in the radio interview were slips of the tongue.
In submissions to the tribunal, lawyers for Lord Laming argue that the case should be thrown out because it was filed outside the three-month time limit; that the tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear the claim because Lord Laming was not Mr Herbert's employer; that the peer was not the agent of the Bar Council; and that he did not knowingly aid any discrimination or harassment of Mr Herbert.
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