Conviction follows on from his lawyer wife being given a 12-month restraining order and curfew for her own campaign against husband’s ex-mistress
A criminal barrister was handed a suspended sentence at Southwark Crown Court yesterday after being found guilty of stalking his ex-lover. Earlier this month, his property law wife, Katherine, was slapped with a year-long overnight curfew from 10pm to 6.30am.
Jonathan Simpson — until recently a criminal law specialist at London’s Charter Chambers — was already the subject of a restraining order and police warning when the stalking occurred.
According to reports at the time, Simpson — a graduate of the University of Birmingham — sent a number of letters to his former lover and her family, and even, on one occasion, turned up at the school of his ex-mistress’s eldest child.
During the trial the court heard that Simpson and woman (who could not be named) began an 18-month affair after 20 years of marriage. After the passionate affair ended the criminal barrister continued to contact her.
Leaving his legal career in tatters, Simpson was found guilty of stalking involving serious alarm or distress, and handed a six-month prison sentence suspended for a year. According to the Southern Daily Echo, the experienced barrister was also given a year-long restraining order and a “mental health treatment requirement”.
His 49 year-old wife Katherine — who also faced a single count of stalking resulting in the mid-week curfew — is a property law specialist and head of residential real estate at central London firm Pemberton Greenish. During her trial earlier in June, the court heard how Katherine sent a number of crude letters to relatives of her husband’s ex-lover.
The Mail Online reports that Simpson — who, according to his Legal 500 profile, has represented everyone from “artful dodgers to aristocrats, sports stars to scoundrels” — is currently penning an autobiography entitled, “Confessions of a Criminal Barrister: Lifting the Lid.”