Robert Michael Kearney’s bid to overturn disbarment for sexual misconduct was dismissed by the High Court
A barrister who was expelled from the profession for multiple acts of sexual misconduct has lost his appeal to overturn the sanction.
Robert Michael Kearney, called to the bar in 1996, was disbarred in December 2024 after a tribunal found him guilty of misconduct involving two pupils and a mini‑pupil. His challenge to that decision has now been dismissed by the High Court.
Kearney argued that the tribunal had not given enough weight to mitigating evidence, had wrongly classified his rehabilitation as “personal mitigation”, and had failed to properly apply the “totality principle” when considering the impact of multiple sanctions.
Sitting in Manchester, Mrs Justice Hill rejected all of those arguments. She ruled there was “nothing wrong” with how the tribunal assessed his rehabilitation efforts or the wider evidence about his character.
Embed from Getty ImagesHill J said the tribunal had been “fully entitled to have regard for his pattern of misconduct” and to consider “why the previous investigations and sanctions had been ineffective in preventing his misconduct towards Pupil A and Pupil B”.
Kearney’s disciplinary history already included two previous sanctions. In 2018, he was fined £1,000 for “disgraceful” behaviour towards a male pupil. In 2021, he received a six‑month suspension and a £3,000 fine for making crude sexual remarks to a woman during a mini‑pupillage — a penalty upheld on appeal.
Following a consolidated sanctions hearing in early 2023, Kearney was initially disbarred. That decision was later overturned due to apparent bias within the disciplinary panel, prompting a fresh hearing in December 2024, which again resulted in disbarment.
During the latest appeal, Hill J noted that between 2015 and 2020, Kearney engaged in “multiple examples” of similar misconduct towards junior members of the Bar, continuing even after being made aware of concerns from his chambers and regulator. She said the tribunal was justified in finding there remained a risk of reoffending, “particularly if inebriated”.
On mitigation, the judge confirmed that the tribunal had “specifically acknowledged the strong references” in Kearney’s favour and had “clearly afforded them some weight”. But she emphasised that the tribunal had undertaken a “detailed and careful exercise” in weighing aggravating and mitigating factors, explaining fully why a further suspension was not considered appropriate.
Kearney also argued that disbarment was too severe given that the misconduct occurred under a previous version of the Sanctions Guidance. Hill J dismissed this point, stating: “I do not accept that it is necessarily the case… that disbarment would not have followed, given the serious and repeated nature of the misconduct here and the fact that the sanctions guidance is not prescriptive.”
She concluded that the penalty was proportionate: “For cases within the upper range of seriousness, which both cases were for the reasons the tribunal gave, the Sanctions Guidance made clear disbarment was the ‘indicative sanction’. In those circumstances the sanction of disbarment was not manifestly excessive; nor was it wrong or clearly inappropriate, which is the test applicable to this appeal.”
Kearney’s appeal was therefore dismissed, leaving the disbarment in place
