A solicitor has been prohibited from practising for two years after having sex with an employee on his desk and telling female staff that he preferred them to wear open-toe shoes and short skirts.
Jasvinder Singh Gill, who was previously a senior partner at Hatten Wyatt in Gravesend, has been ordered to pay more than £85,000 in costs after a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
The tribunal, which took place last month, found that the 50-year-old, from Essex, was an experienced and well-regarded solicitor who had built a thriving business but had conducted himself towards more junior staff in a way which was wrong and inappropriate.
Gill was found in breach of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) principles after he initiated a sexual relationship with a female employee, took part in consensual sexual intercourse with an employee on a desk on two occasions and said he preferred female employees to wear open-toe shoes, stockings and not tights and short skirts, describing this dress as “proper office attire”.
A statement in the independent regulator’s document read: “His motivation had been a sexual one and his conduct placed the female employees who he had picked upon with the no doubt unsettling dilemma that rebuffing him would or could count against them in their continuing employment within the firm and the resultant difficulties of leaving the firm and seeking new employment.”
The inappropriate behaviour began in October 2015 when Gill was in a position of seniority and authority over a female employee, Person A, who had started working for the firm.
He invited her to a pub lunch and then requested she went to his office where he kissed her on the lips.
In November 2019, shortly after junior lawyer, Person B, joined the company, he invited her to his hotel room during a work trip to Bristol.
He took her to his room to order takeaway pizza, changed into his loungewear and laid on the bed.
He also offered her an alcoholic beverage while she sat on the bed waiting for pizza, and on another occasion joked about a child looking up Person B's skirt.
Between April 2019 and October 2020, he also began a sexual relationship with Person C after she joined the firm.
Mr Gill regularly kissed Person C while his office door was closed, regularly flirted with her, and put his hand on her knee when they kissed.
It was heard that Mr Gill even had sex with Person C on his desk twice.
A spokesperson for the SRA said that while the regulation authority makes the decision to prosecute, the SDT is the body that rules on a finding of culpability and sanction.
In the SDT’s findings, the body’s representatives concluded: “The factual circumstances in this case and the tribunal’s assessment of the seriousness of the misconduct required that a fixed term of suspension was the appropriate sanction in this case and that nothing less was needed to protect the reputation of the legal profession.”
The tribunal ordered that Gill be suspended from practice as a solicitor for the period of 24 months, from May 21 2024, and he was further ordered to pay the costs of £85,501.10.
Hatten Wyatt has also been contacted for comment.
Gill, who qualified in 1999, provided mitigation in relation to his health.
