Covid: Letters sent to hundreds of schools and surgeries
A solicitor accused of sending misleading threats to schools and GP surgeries over Covid vaccinations for children is to face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
Lois Bayliss of Broad Yorkshire Law in Sheffield is accused of sending letters in February 2022 to up to 450 individuals at up to 247 schools and GP surgeries, and encouraged up to 48 others to send similar letters.
According to a notice published yesterday by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, these threatened that the recipients would face civil and/or criminal liability if they required face-coverings and carried out routine lateral flow tests for schoolchildren, and facilitated the school-age children Covid-vaccination programme.
The SRA alleges that these threats were misleading and that, in making them, Ms Bayliss “improperly sought to rely upon her standing and role as a solicitor”.
The allegations are as yet unproven and subject to a hearing before the SDT.
Ms Bayliss was in the news in early 2022 after an advert she placed in the Rotherham Advertiser (subsequently withdrawn by the paper) and a letter from her to schools shared on social media cited a crime reference number from the Metropolitan Police.
This was evidence, she claimed, of a criminal investigation into the vaccine roll-out and the solicitor warned: “Should you fail to cancel the immunisation session you will render yourself liable for any losses sustained as a result of the visit and liability could include criminal liability.”
The likes of Reuters fact-checked the claim, finding that the crime number was issued after a person made an allegation of a vaccine-related crime, but a review of the complaint showed nothing to indicate a crime was committed and no investigation was launched.
Earlier this month, the British Medical Association said a solicitor was set to face the SDT for aggressively threatening GPs with legal action if the doctor did not provide a Covid vaccination exemption for their client.
