Suspended suspension and restrictions on social media activity
A solicitor who posted antisemitic content and conspiracy theories on Twitter/X has been handed a suspended suspension after a tribunal ruled his conduct fell short of the standards expected of the profession.
Jonathan Lea, director of Jonathan Lea Solicitors in Sussex, has been handed a 12-month suspension, itself suspended for two years, and ordered to pay £25,000 in costs.
Lea, admitted in 2006, used his public Twitter/X account under the handle @jonathanlea to post a string of offensive tweets over eight years. The account was public, identified him as a solicitor, and was strongly associated with his firm, which trades as the Jonathan Lea Network.
The tribunal’s published ruling details some of the posts, which included references to the Holocaust and “Rothschild central banking”, as well as tweets suggesting he would treat vaccinated people less favourably than others. He also tweeted that “people need to organise, destroy those cameras and overwhelm the council with angry locals” in response to plans to install automatic number plate recognition cameras in Canterbury.
When the Solicitors Regulation Authority opened an investigation, Lea’s initial response was to assert that he had “the human right to free expression and free speech which can only be limited when prescribed by law.” He later conceded this had been “defensive”, eventually accepting that the content fell below the professional standards expected of a solicitor
The tribunal found that Lea had been motivated to post offensive and inappropriate material by his “strong appetite to attract attention” and that he reacted instantly to material he read on the platform, rather than engaging in “calculated wrongdoing”.
It stopped short of finding that his antisemitic posts reflected his genuine views, concluding that he “did not hold the viewpoints aired in the posts.” That said, the tribunal found he “caused great harm” to the groups he referred to in his posts and had failed to consider “the vulnerability of people of Jewish heritage when conflict was an issue.” His Covid-19 tweets, it added, were made during a period when many people lost their lives to the virus.
Striking off was ruled out given the absence of dishonesty. The tribunal found his conduct to be a complete departure from the “complete integrity, probity and trustworthiness” expected of solicitors, but concluded it remained an “error in judgement rather than a failing deserving of the most severe sanctions available.”
Alongside the suspended suspension, Lea was made subject to a restriction order governing his social media activity.
