This Really Isn't Ok! Black Barrister Gets Treated Like Offender

Court chiefs have launched an inquiry into staff racism after a black woman barrister was mistaken for a defendant three times in a single day.

- Cyril Dixon

Alexandra Wilson told how another lawyer, a court clerk and a security guard assumed she was a potential offender because she was black.

The Oxford graduate, 25, suffered the racial profiling when she arrived to defend one of her clients. The Essex-born counsel said: “This really isn’t OK. I don’t expect to have to constantly justify my existence at work.”

Kevin Sadler, acting chief of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, apologised and promised to investigate the “totally unacceptable behaviour”.

Alexandra, who is mixed-race and has written a book about being a non-white lawyer, said she was “absolutely exhausted” by her treatment.

Describing the ordeal, she said a security guard was the first to stereotype her, asking for her name so he could find it on the defendants’ list. “I explained I was a barrister. He apologised and guided me through security. At this point I tried to shrug it off as an innocent mistake.”