England: Training contract withdrawn from ‘racist’ law student

It follows an investigation by University of Exeter into allegations that multiple members of Bracton Law Society (BLS) shared racist and misogynistic messages in a private WhatsApp group.

Screenshots of messages from the group were published on Facebook and Twitter by Arsalan Motavali, a member of the BLS committee, who also reported the students to the students’ union and the university.

He identified one of the men named in the screenshots as a “future trainee solicitor at Hill Dickinson” and a fellow committee member.

His alleged messages included a slew of racial slurs, a description of black people as “useless tree ornaments”, that “gay marriage should be illegal”, and repeated references to rape, including one in which he suggested inviting women to a bar crawl “before we rape them lifeless”.

Others writing in the WhatsApp group made Holocaust jokes and talked about starting a “race war”, while one issued a call to “bomb the mosques” to “radicalise the moderates fast track final days”.

Peter Jackson, chief executive of Hill Dickinson, said: “Following serious allegations made against an individual who was due to join the firm in September 2019, we have now spoken to the individual and revoked his offer of employment.

“We are deeply disturbed by the messages that were brought to our attention last night and would like to stress that the views expressed by the individual and others involved in this matter do not in any way represent the views of the firm and we absolutely do not condone this behaviour.”