A ‘brilliantly successful’ barrister has been disbarred for lying that he studied at Oxford.
Anurag Mohindru, 50, had risen to become a KC, and acted in multiple crown court trials – including successfully helping defend England cricket star Ben Stokes against assault charges.
But his glittering career is at an end after the Bar Tribunal Service yesterday found him guilty of claiming to have studied at Oxford.
He did so in a job application 12 years ago, but because his lies risk bringing the profession into disrepute, he has been barred from acting in the courts – and ordered to pay £54,000 costs.
Mr Mohindru, chairman of Essex county cricket club, a role he faces being stripped of this weekend, had also been charged with falsely claiming to have qualified as a medical doctor – and was said to have falsely claimed to have played professional cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club, based at Lord’s.
Mr Mohindru appears to have studied for a pre-medical degree at St George’s University School of Medicine (USA), without qualifying as a doctor, before completing a one year law conversion course at the distinctly un-Oxbridge University of Wales.
A five-person tribunal last week ruled that he had lied about studying biomedical science or medicine at Oxford.
A second charge that he had falsely claimed to have a qualification as a medical doctor was dismissed.
Anurag Mohindru, 50, described as a ‘brilliantly successful’ barrister, has been disbarred for lying that he studied at Oxford
Mr Mohindru acted in multiple crown court trials – including successfully helping defend England cricket star Ben Stokes (pictured) against assault charges
The claims that he lied about being a professional cricketer – unearthed by cricket-fan barristers who interviewed him and smelt a rat – were not formal charges.
He also claimed to have won a cricket ‘blue’ for playing for Oxford against Cambridge, it was said.
Chairman of the disciplinary panel Nicholas Ainley said Mohindru told a ‘reckless, foolish and completely unnecessary lie’ about studying at Oxford both in interview and in a written CV when applying to the 23 Essex Chambers in 2013.
Mr Ainley said it was ‘with genuine regret we find the charge proved’ ending what had been a ‘brilliantly successful’ career since Mohindru had been called to the bar in 2004.
Mr Mohindru faced the testimony of five barristers who interviewed him in 2013, and made the desperate defence that they all must have misremembered what he said – and that his CV must have been tampered with.
Computer experts said that had not happened.
In mitigation Mohindru’s own barrister Mark Harries KC said he had been ‘unsophisticated, utterly foolish’ and had made a ‘gross error of judgement that had come back to haunt him’.
‘He has already had to sell his house, has an imminent tax bill he cannot afford, and is living in a house provided by the school where his wife teaches.’
A top London lawyer said: ‘The legal profession’s top tier is so Oxbridge dominated that when they meet each other they don’t even both asking what university you went to – they ask what college.
‘Mohindru’s lie was doomed from the start.’
