The lawyer who was reprimanded by a judge for looking like "something out of Harry Potter" has published a 2,000 word attack on the SRA accusing it of being vindictive and pursuing a "witch hunt".
"Dr The Right Honourable The Lord Harley of Counsel of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem", or "Alan Blacker" as he's known to his mum, is set to appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal next month. He is charged with breaches including failing to produce his firm's accounts, making claims to be entitled to use titles which were misleading or inaccurate, failing to co-operate with the SRA investigation and recklessly misleading the court while appearing before 'Harry Potter' Judge Wynn Morgan.
But in a blistering article posted by Blacker on LinkedIn and reproduced below, the self-styled Lord has hit back. Under the title "Lord Harley: You be the judge", Blacker alleges that he won a series of appeals against the SRA which led to it "pursuing a vendetta" against him. He claims that it is now harassing him and that it even "deliberately listed the hearing on Lord Harley’s birthday, coincidence?"
Scoffing that the SRA will be "left embarrassed" at the tribunal and that its witnesses will be "demolished", Blacker reveals that his SDT statement is, worryingly, "over two hundred paragraphs long, with three hundred exhibits and nine witnesses. You be the judge".
He also clarifies that he is "a recognised expert in several fields of science" and, in a section presented in centred text which has the unfortunate effect of making it look like a poem, gives his view that the Harry Potter judge "picked on Lord Harley" for "making him apologise during the trial for an outburst" and then "got Lord Harley back for it at the end of the trial".
A spokesman for the SRA told RollOnFriday, “We have published our allegations in this case. It would not be appropriate for us to make any further comment ahead of the Tribunal hearing”.
Tip Off ROF
"Dr The Right Honourable The Lord Harley of Counsel of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem", or "Alan Blacker" as he's known to his mum, is set to appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal next month. He is charged with breaches including failing to produce his firm's accounts, making claims to be entitled to use titles which were misleading or inaccurate, failing to co-operate with the SRA investigation and recklessly misleading the court while appearing before 'Harry Potter' Judge Wynn Morgan.
But in a blistering article posted by Blacker on LinkedIn and reproduced below, the self-styled Lord has hit back. Under the title "Lord Harley: You be the judge", Blacker alleges that he won a series of appeals against the SRA which led to it "pursuing a vendetta" against him. He claims that it is now harassing him and that it even "deliberately listed the hearing on Lord Harley’s birthday, coincidence?"
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Not your average lawyer/Dr/Lord |
Scoffing that the SRA will be "left embarrassed" at the tribunal and that its witnesses will be "demolished", Blacker reveals that his SDT statement is, worryingly, "over two hundred paragraphs long, with three hundred exhibits and nine witnesses. You be the judge".
He also clarifies that he is "a recognised expert in several fields of science" and, in a section presented in centred text which has the unfortunate effect of making it look like a poem, gives his view that the Harry Potter judge "picked on Lord Harley" for "making him apologise during the trial for an outburst" and then "got Lord Harley back for it at the end of the trial".
A spokesman for the SRA told RollOnFriday, “We have published our allegations in this case. It would not be appropriate for us to make any further comment ahead of the Tribunal hearing”.
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1. He's not senior counsel, he's not even junior counsel; he's a solicitor with higher rights (the Grade A and Grade 4 accreditation is nonsense - you either have higher rights or you don't);
2. He was a paralegal, admitted after some wrangling with the SRA over the relevance of his experience as an exemption from a training contract) as a solicitor in May 2010, but was calling himself "Counsel" with the implication of some form of legal qualification before then;
3. Joint Armed Forces Legal Advocacy Service is not an SRA-regulated law practice and wasn't registered as a charity until June 2011.
4. If you want to see the SRA's concerns and decision to prosecute - review it yourself: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/solicitor-check/342003.article
5. Blacker is a not recognised expert in any field of science - it's a total fabrication: he hasn't published any scientific material in any peer reviewed journal - ever.
6. Burke's peerage confirmed he made up his title.
7. "Lord Harley’s statement is over two hundred paragraphs long, with three hundred exhibits and nine witnesses. You be the judge." Quite.
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It has been downhill since then as the fantasy has run riot.
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He has variously called himself the Earl of Carrick, the Earl of Dublin and Lord Harley. He is none of them.
He is the son of a loom tattler who was born in Canada and came to England as a two year old. The nonsense about an ancient Irish peerage is precisely that: nonsense.
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Very interested to see how this one plays out.
Thanks for publishing in full thanks also for the link to SRA response.
I'm less bothered about whether he has titles or not but would be interested if someone could verify his claim that he's represented people in court before without any issues - either from the bench or from the clients. If he's not harming/misleading/cheating the clients, they are surely free to continue to instruct him ... ?
Great to see the resources being spent on this chap, by the way. Classic litigation doc request techniques being brought out:
Outrageously the first demand that was made was for a copy of Lord Harley's practising certificate, this is a document issued by the very people asking for it! The SRA then demanded copies of Lord Harley's higher rights of audience certificates, again certificates issued by the very people asking for them. Lord Harley then received a letter confirming that these documents did not need to be produced as they had been independently verified after making back room enquiries
Whatever the objective truth (does that even exist?), the SRA does not come out of this one with an enhanced rep.
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Try again please. I think a few of us are keen to hear the other side of this story.
We are waiting ...
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