Stephen Kamlish QC

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

BSB prosecuted Stephen Kamlish QC for making four allegations of bad faith against successive prosecution teams (leading and junior counsel and the CPS) at a 2016 Warwick Crown Court hearing, contrary to Core Duties 1, 3, 5 and rC7.3, alleged to have been made without reasonable grounds. After an 8-day remote hearing, the Tribunal found that for three of the four particulars (and against most counsel), the BSB could not be sure the Respondent lacked reasonable grounds, given the context of serious prosecution failures and the discredited identification witness DC Maher. The only proven breach concerned the allegation against Counsel 2 in particular (i), but the Tribunal concluded this was a genuine misjudgement, not gross negligence, recklessness or deliberate conduct, and not serious enough to amount to professional misconduct. No dishonesty was found. All three charges were dismissed, with ancillary matters to be determined later.

Duties found breached:

• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• No conflict between current clients
• Overriding duty to the court
• Uphold public trust in the profession

Mitigating factors:

• 36 impressive testimonials attesting to his integrity and that he stays within professional boundaries
• Genuine belief that he had reasonable grounds for the allegations
• Allegations made in context of serious prosecution failures and discredited witness DC Maher
• Not a lone voice - co-defending counsel made similar submissions
• Misjudgement rather than gross negligence or deliberate conduct