Barrister Daniel Bennett has been fined £500 and sanctioned in relation to what The Bar Standards Board has called ‘inappropriate and offensive’ tweets about his former colleague Adam Wagner.
The tweets were sent between September 2018 and June 2019 accusing Adam Wagner, a high-profile human rights Barrister, of fabricating stories about antisemitism.
The tweets were from the account @arrytuttle linked to Daniel Bennett. Harry Tuttle is the name of the rebel plumber played by Robert de Niro in the film Brazil.
The Bar Standards Board held that Daniel Bennett had ‘allowed’ the Tweets to be sent and accordingly behaved in a way which was likely to diminish the trust and confidence in him and the profession.
The Twitter account targeted activists campaigning against antisemitism in the Labour Party. It had around 4,500 followers.
The account has now been deleted.
Daniel Bennett had reportedly apologised for any offence caused by the @arrytuttle account and maintained that he did not support any attacks on Adam Wagner or others.
Adam Wagner pointed out in 2019 that the @arrytuttle account had ‘waged a campaign of anonymous abuse and harassment against me and others involved in the Labour antisemitism issues’.
Following the BSB decision Adam Wagner tweeted: ‘This has all been incredibly stressful as you might imagine so I’m not going to say anything more about it for now.’
Daniel Bennett has 21 days to appeal the BSB decision.
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