Lawyer Who Sexually Assaulted Female Colleague, 25, And Asked Her To Lie, Disbarred

Lawyer Kevin Farquharson's actions during a night out in the UK two years ago left him jobless as he groped a female colleague's breasts and told her to lie about it.

In the early hours of Sept. 28, 2019, the 45-year-old sexually assaulted the woman inside a photo booth in a bar in Bristol in the UK, reported Daily Mail. The victim, in her twenties, asked him "what the f***" he was doing, but Farquharson continued to grab her buttocks and breasts on the dance floor.

The Bar Tribunal and Adjudication Service recently heard that she tried to fight him off, but he pinned her arms down and tried to force her to kiss him while he touched her crotch. Her ordeal came to an end when staff at the bar removed him as she hid in the bathroom. She declined the bar staff's offer to get cops involved as she did not want to get her colleague in trouble.

When he returned back home at 4 am, his "furious" partner demanded to know what he had been up to. After admitting sexual assault in court, he was given a two-month suspended sentence, ordered to put on the sexual offenders' register for seven years and pay the woman £1,800 ($2,478.50) in compensation.

Mark Ruffell, for the Bar Standards Board, found the case a sad one from start to finish. He said that on the one hand, there is a young lady who was "great friends with the respondent, no doubt saw him most days in a professional context, and it is fair to say they were friends." "They decided to go out, let their hair down on the evening and then sadly through drink the events took place," he added.

Ruffell referred to the victim impact statement and noted that she said that she was traumatized due to the perseverance.

After the incident, he told the woman to lie by sending a text saying "Would you help me by responding to my text tomorrow by simply stating, 'We lost sight of you at about 1.45. You left after you had a run in with one of the bouncers. I hope you are feeling okay.''' He also sent a text message to another colleague, asking him to say that he was with him when the bouncer arrived, if Farquharson's partner contacted him and asked about the incident.

Farquharson, who was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder and post traumatic stress disorder due to experiences in his childhood, said that he had sent the messages, but denied them being professional misconduct as his judgement was affected due to his mental health. Farquharson admitted he asked the woman to give a "partial account" in the message he asked her to send across, but said that it was not meant to deliberately hide the truth about what had happened that night.

Following charges of professional misconduct brought by the Bar Standards Board, he was ordered to be disbarred by an independent disciplinary tribunal which concluded last week.