British lawyer linked to anti-Mandela petition

The Crown Prosecution Service has stressed its commitment to ‘impartiality and fairness’ amid claims that one of its lawyers may have shared inflammatory material online. According to a Law Gazette report, a petition by right-wing group Britain First, calling for a statue of Nelson Mandela to be ‘torn down’, appeared on the Facebook timeline of senior lawyer Kim Kendall. The petition accused the former SA President, who is commemorated in Parliament Square, of being a ‘communist and terrorist mass murderer’. It is also reported that a post related to the death of Lee Rigby and a petition for Labour MP Naz Shah to resign or be sacked have appeared on Kendall’s timeline. Her Facebook site is no longer publicly available. According to the Law Society’s Find a Solicitor service, Kendall is an employee at the Crown Prosecution Service in Humberside and was admitted in 2003. The CPS has stated it does not comment on individual cases, but in a statement said: ‘Impartiality and fairness are central CPS values and these are underpinned by a clear code of conduct. Any allegations of inappropriate behaviour are taken very seriously and investigated thoroughly.’ It has also been reported that the matter has been referred on to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Full Law Gazette report