Barrister hit with death threats in revenge for his war on corruption

Harassment: Jo Sidhu
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

A leading barrister told how he was targeted with death threats in revenge for his battle to expose corruption in the justice system.

The Society of Asian Lawyers’ president Jo Sidhu, 50, was subjected to a 12-month internet campaign to discredit his reputation through dozens of fake Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and websites.

He told the Standard of his ordeal after a cyber-criminal behind the smear campaign — tracked by a private forensic computer expert he had hired — was sent to prison for harassing him.

“The websites were malicious, threatening and deeply distressing to me and my family,” said Mr Sidhu. “Some contained death threats, which we took very seriously. It was a nightmare no decent person should have to suffer.”

One site featured sinister Wanted-style posters with a bounty of £1 million on Mr Sidhu’s head. Another showed his name written on a gravestone. They included links to an online petition calling for him to be disbarred.

The QC was speaking after Jason Place was jailed for five years following his harassment conviction in a three-week trial at Inner London crown court.

Jailed: Jason Place

Place, 46, of Gravesend, Kent was found guilty of stalking, causing serious alarm or distress, fraud and 10 counts of failing to comply with a serious crime prevention order.

He was sentenced to four years for the harassment, with further sentences for the fraud and breaches amounting to a total of five years. Outside court a Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Place was arrested by our Organised Crime Command after his criminal behaviour was detected by officers who had been monitoring him as part of his serious crime prevention order.”

Mr Sidhu has appeared in a number of major criminal trials, including the £40 million Graff diamonds robbery and three terror cases.

He is also a high-profile campaigner against a minority of lawyers and unqualified consultants milking the Legal Aid system. He thinks a corrupt legal practitioner hired Place in a bid to bully him out of the profession. He was so frightened by the abuse he stepped up security at his family’s west London home.

While many of the sites have been removed from the net, several are still accessible via simple web searches.

Mr Sidhu called for internet search engines to employ more robust controls to prevent other people being subjected to harassment. He said: “I did all I could to help police identify the perpetrators. If I hadn’t been able to pay for a computer expert I doubt Place would have been prosecuted.

“The police just don’t have enough resources to combat the growing menace of cyber-crime.

“The response of Google, Yahoo and Bing was utterly inadequate. Even when they knew the police were investigating the internet attacks as a serious crime, their default position was to do nothing until repeatedly pushed to take action to remove the offensive sites.”

Place began the campaign after being freed from a jail sentence for a sophisticated identity theft scam.

From a villa in Alicante, Spain, he and an accomplice directed cyber-criminal gang Confidential Access, who sold fake documents to thousands of customers with instructions on using them to defraud companies.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in