A crowd funding campaign has been launched to help top lawyer Mark Lewis after he was fined £2,500 for sending offensive tweets in response to antisemitism and ordered to pay £10,000 in costs.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that Mr Lewis, the former director of UK Lawyers for Israel best known for representing phone hacking victims, sent "offensive and profane" messages on Twitter and Facebook in which he "‘wished death" on some of those who were attacking him.
But Timothy Kendall, who represented Mr Lewis, argued that his client had been subjected to a three-year hate campaign on Twitter consisting of “thousands” of abusive antisemitic messages from neo-Nazis.
Mr Lewis, had to increase his personal security as a result of the threats he received, the tribunal heard.
Trolls also mocked Mr Lewis’s multiple sclerosis and superimposed the image of his face on photographs of a crematorium at Auschwitz.
Mr Kendall told the panel that some of Mr Lewis’s abusers had been convicted for their abuse and argued that his client had only responded to a small amount of the abuse on social media.
Mr Lewis’ messages, which were sent over an 18-month period in 2015 and 2016, included “Hurry up & die. Preferably in pain.”; “Oh f**k off and die”; “Just hurry up and die because I’m going to bed”; “truly hope you die soon painfully”; and “I’m aware all die I just would like yours to be soon.”
The lawyer told the SRA his responses were a “shock tactic” that were “necessary and justified” and “fully warranted” in light of the threats he was receiving.
Its judgment, the SRA wrote that it “does not in any way support or condone the offensive anti-semitic messages to which the Respondent claims that he was responding in the communications that he sent”.
A Just Giving campaign set up on Monday up to raise £12,500 to help Mr Lewis pay the penalty and legal costs had already raised more than £4,800 by Tuesday morning.
Organisers of the campaign wrote: “Mark Lewis, stood up to antisemites and as a result faced a professional disciplinary hearing.
“Anyone who regards themselves as an antiracist should be appalled by this hearing and verdict. The victim has become the perpetrator. Mark Lewis is a hero who has stood up for all of us. Surely the least we can do is ensure that he does not suffer financially.”
In a statement, Mr Lewis told the JC the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which charged Mr Lewis, “was faced with a choice between Holocaust denying neo-Nazis and a Jewish lawyer.
"It chose to side with the neo-Nazis. It is on the wrong side of history. It is the Holocaust revisionists who are celebrating the verdict. That tells you all that you need to know,” he said.
“I am so grateful for the support that I have received from the Jewish and legal communities both in terms of attendance at the Tribunal and financially.
"It has been truly humbling to feel so much support for me and my partner Mandy."
He added he was due to make Aliya on December 5, saying: "I am so pleased that there is a homeland to go to.”
