Facebook: Inappropriate posts
A solicitor who shared a petition from far-right group Britain First on her Facebook page while working for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
Kim Kendall, who at the time worked for the CPS in Hull, hit the headlines in June 2020 for sharing the petition, which called statue of Nelson Mandela in London to be “torn down”, describing him as “a communist and terrorist mass murderer” who should be “consigned to the dustbin of history”.
Other posts which appeared on her timeline included one first posted by another Facebook user about the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby, saying: “I don’t remember the UK rioting after 2 black immigrants hacked to death a white British soldier in broad daylight … Just saying!”
At the top of Ms Kendall’s Facebook page was another petition calling for Asian Labour MP Naz Shah “to resign or be sacked”, while another post featured a photo of a man protesting against the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Guardian reported last year that the page was removed after it contacted the CPS.
Though the notice published yesterday by the SRA does not specify that these are the social media posts for which she has been sanctioned, Legal Futures understands that they are.
It said Ms Kendall was found to have “shared inappropriate social media posts on her social media account which caused offence to others and undermined the trust placed in her and in the provision of legal services and did not encourage equality, diversity or inclusion”.
The regulator continued: “It was found that Mrs Kendall has failed to act in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the solicitors’ profession and in the legal services provided by authorised persons and failed to act in a way that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion in breach of principles 2 and 6 of the SRA principles 2019.”
The CPS would not comment on whether Ms Kendall had faced any action for breaching its rules on staff not compromising their political neutrality or why she had left the organisation.