IF ANUJA DHIR were to write an autobiography, a suitable title might be: ‘How to be a Serial Shatterer of Glass Ceilings’. Alternatively, she could call her life story: ‘How a Female Asian Dyslexic Scot became an Old Bailey Judge’, or even: ‘Triumph of a Fourfold Underdog.’
However you look at it, her career has been a victory of ambition, talent, determination and self belief over institutional bias.
She is Britain’s first non-white central criminal court judge, who since 2017 has sat at the Old Bailey as Her Honour Judge Anuja Dhir. She is one of a highly select group of judges able to preside over the most heinous kinds of criminal cases, including murder and terrorism. She is also authorised to try cases that are held ‘in camera’ for reasons of national security.
For someone who was advised by her schoolteachers to become a hairdresser – and was routinely mistaken for a defendant or witness when first called to the bar – Dhir’s climb to the top of the legal tree has been an outstanding personal achievement.
When she entered the profession in 1989, it was dominated overwhelmingly by white public-school educated men with ‘connections.’ On one famous occasion, the court security demanded she produce her wig and gown before agreeing to let her into the building. Most clients did not want “a young, Asian, Scottish female” to represent them, which made it harder to build a client base.
“I got used to turning up at courts and people saying to me ‘Witness? – no – Defendant? – no’ and looking rather surprised when I said I was the advocate”, she says, recalling the challenges of her early career.
Have things changed for the better in the intervening years? She believes they have, both generally and within the legal profession in particular.
“My daughter – it would never cross her mind being treated differently because she’s a female or because she’s not white whereas in my generation, we did.”
As far as the legal profession specifically is concerned, she says things have come a long way over the last 30 years, pointing out, as an illustrative example, how in court recently, she found herself trying a case in which one of the barristers was a “Miss Khan” – the point being that there were two Asian women present in court at the Old Bailey at the same time with key roles in a major case, something that would have been unheard of 30 years ago.
“We qualified together – I have known her all my professional life. We were called (to the bar) on the same day. Judy Khan is a good barrister, a very good Silk. We are getting to a point now where we are not on the margins – we are in the mainstream. We are doing the big cases. And it is no longer as it was when we started. There was diversity but it was stuck out there in the middle of nowhere. But it was not doing the really important cases. But we are now. We are at the heart of it now.”
She adds: “Crown Court judges can do all ordinary crime. The authorisation next stage up is attempted murder and the next stage up from that is murder and the next stage up is terrorism. Most of us (at the Old Bailey) are cleared to do the lot.”
Along with the extra weight of responsibility that comes with trying the most serious cases, Old Bailey judges have to contend with a heightened level of public scrutiny of the punishments they hand out, while not allowing themselves to be swayed by the perennial clamour for “tougher” sentences.
Dhir found herself at the centre of a controversy in December 2018 when she gave a twoyear suspended sentence to a youth who had brandished a hunting knife at a motorist in Croydon. The incident had been captured on camera and went viral on social media leading to calls for the young man to be jailed and a petition calling for Dhir to face a sanction for being ‘too lenient’. The fact there were mitigating circumstances around the crime was a detail to which the media-driven sentencing police seemed oblivious.
Not that Dhir ever had a reputation for being soft on criminals. Over the years she has been involved as barrister or judge in “lots and lots” of murder and other serious criminal cases, and certainly not shied away from meting out the maximum tariff of 30 years when circumstances demanded – though it is not a responsibility she takes lightly.
“Passing a life sentence on another human being is a responsibility. Nobody wants to do that. There are times when I have gone home and felt sad that this spur of the moment madness has resulted in two families being devastated. There are no winners in murder trials.
The victim is gone – and gone for ever. And the lives of the victim’s family will never be the same again. And the life of the defendant, often very young, will never be the same again. You can’t help in thinking – you would be inhuman if you didn’t – what if the victim or the defendant had taken a different turn?”
In the broadest of terms, she sees her job as ensuring the rule of law is upheld. “That means all people and institutions in this country are the subject of the same laws. And we make sure on a daily basis that the people who come into our courtroom are treated fairly, with dignity and respect and that the language we use in court is a language that everyone can understand. We, as judges, have the power and ability to make sure everyone is treated properly.”
Born and brought up in Dundee Scotland by her Hindu Punjabi father and Gujarati mother, Dhir was educated at Harris Academy, a state school, and read law at Dundee University before winning a scholarship to Gray’s Inn. She is married to Sir Nicholas Lavender, a high court judge, which means she is entitled to be addressed as Lady Lavend.
