FOR MORE than a decade on the bench – and more than three decades in the law – Her Honour Judge Anuja Dhir KC has brought a rare combination of composure, authority and empathy to the most serious criminal trials in England and Wales.
Today she sits at the Old Bailey, the historic courtroom where the country’s most complex and grave cases are heard. In 2017 she became the first non-white judge to sit at the court, a milestone that quietly altered the landscape of Britain’s judiciary. Yet the significance of the appointment lies not only in symbolism. Dhir has built a reputation as a rigorous criminal judge capable of steering intricate trials involving violence, organised crime and national security while remaining attentive to the human consequences that unfold inside the courtroom.
Born and raised in Dundee, she studied law before graduating in 1988 with a dual degree in English and Scottish law. A year later she was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn, entering a profession that looked markedly different from today’s.
“When I joined the Bar, there were mainly white males, and that too from certain types of backgrounds,” she told the GG2 Power List last year. “Since then, we have come such a long way; the makeup of the professions, both solicitors and barristers, has changed considerably, and that, of course, has an impact on the pool of potential candidates for judicial appointment.”
Criminal law quickly became her professional focus. From 2007 she also served as a special advocate in national security proceedings, representing the interests of individuals in cases involving sensitive intelligence material.
Her transition to the judiciary came in 2012 when she was appointed a circuit judge. Five years later, at just 49, she was selected to sit at the Old Bailey. The appointment made her both the first non-white judge to sit at the court and one of the youngest to do so.
The Old Bailey deals with some of the gravest offences in the criminal calendar – murder, terrorism, organised crime – and the trials often carry profound emotional weight. Dhir has spoken candidly about the psychological toll that accompanies such work.
“There is no pleasure derived from sentencing young people to long sentences of imprisonment, particularly if they have been convicted of murder,” she said. “There is the family of the person who was killed, whose child is never coming back. Then there are the defendants, often young themselves, sitting in the dock. And then you have the jury, hearing the most harrowing evidence about how a young person lost their life.”
“So, when a judge comes out of court, on some rare days, there is bound to be a feeling of sadness or exhaustion, but that’s where the support of your colleagues makes a huge difference.”
The reality of those words was illustrated in a case she sentenced in November 2025, when a 22-year-old man was jailed for 13 years for manslaughter after a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in front of his mother in their Croydon home. The attack, carried out by a group armed with knives and machetes, followed a revenge-fuelled crime spree across south London.
Delivering sentence at the Old Bailey, Dhir addressed the brutality of the crime directly. “When you arrived at the address, it was your plan to cause injury and you knew that knives were being carried, some of those knives were large machetes,” she told the defendant. The killing itself, she added, was almost unimaginable in its cruelty: “Camron Smith was killed in front of his mother in her bedroom. I cannot think of anything worse for a mother to see.”
Such cases underline the stark realities that shape the work of a criminal judge. Yet Dhir’s influence extends well beyond the courtroom. Alongside her judicial duties she has become an active advocate for greater diversity within the legal profession.
She believes the system has begun to change, though progress remains ongoing. “Things are improving,” she said. “There is definitely a real commitment to encourage anyone who is suitably qualified, from whatever background they come from, to apply to become a judge.”
Much of that effort involves direct engagement with students and young people. Dhir regularly visits schools and universities to explain how the legal system works and to demystify careers in law. For many students, particularly those who have never met a judge, the experience can be transformative.
Education has been a consistent thread throughout her career, shaped in part by her upbringing. “Teaching has always been part of what I enjoy, and so I do quite a bit of that alongside judging,” she said. “It is also part of our Hindu culture, to share knowledge, to support others and to learn from those who are more experienced than us.”
A dyslexic herself, she has been involved in training judges and lawyers on how courts should handle vulnerable or neurodivergent witnesses – an increasingly important aspect of modern criminal trials.
She has supported programmes aimed at preventing youth violence. One initiative, ‘No Knives, Better Lives’, brings young people into the Old Bailey to hear directly from experts – including bereaved parents and forensic specialists – about the devastating consequences of knife crime.
“We bring in students who have been involved in some form of criminal activity and therefore are at risk of being more involved,” she said. “We organise evenings where they are spoken to by a number of experts, including a mother who has lost a child to knife crime and a pathologist who explains what happens to the body when a knife goes inside it.”
“Sometimes, young minds need to be explained of the consequences of their actions.”
She has served as a commissioner on the Judicial Appointments Commission between 2018 and 2024, the body responsible for selecting judges in England and Wales, and is authorised to sit in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division.
She is married to High Court judge Sir Nicholas Lavender and they have two sons and a daughter.
