Former trainee doctor in contempt for online campaign against judge

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Website: Continued publication is ongoing defiance of court

A former trainee doctor has been found in contempt of court for repeatedly breaching injunctions imposed on him to stop using a website to harass a circuit judge.

Mr Justice Nicklin said he was sure that Javed Shaikh’s denials that he was the webmaster of the Judges Behaving Badly (JBB) website were false. Mr Shaikh has always insisted that he is innocent.

Nicklin J said several of the comments posted on the website by Mr Shaikh were a “deliberate miasma” designed to provide him “with a platform falsely to deny” that he was responsible for the website.

“It is an elaborate dishonest theatre. I am sure that, at all times, it has been within the power of the defendant to comply with the injunction order and close down the JBB website.

“He has deliberately refused to do so and has posted further comments in breach of the injunction order. In this respect, the defendant’s breaches of the injunction order have been deliberate, calculated and flagrant.”

The High Court heard at an earlier hearing before Mr Justice Julian Knowles last November that between March 2007 and June 2009 Mr Shaikh worked as a trainee cardiac physiologist for the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital NHS Trust, before being dismissed for gross misconduct.

Mr Shaikh challenged his dismissal at an employment tribunal, which dismissed his claim in October 2010.

The tribunal found that he had created forged and/or false documents and online posts, carried out tests on patients that he was not qualified to perform and informed patients of test results when he should not have done so.

The Independent Safeguarding Authority decided to put Mr Shaikh on the Adults Barred List, a decision Mr Shaikh appealed to the Administrative Appeals Chamber of the Upper Tribunal, where it came before His Honour Judge Simon Oliver. The tribunal ruled against Mr Shaikh.

HHJ Oliver brought harassment proceedings last year against Mr Shaikh, who he said had “harassed him and his family and has caused him and them serious alarm and distress” since 2016.

The harassment was “perpetrated primarily” through the JBB website, on which allegations of serious criminality are made against HHJ Oliver and his sons.

In his witness statement for last November’s hearing, HHJ Oliver said: “I absolutely hate reading the blog as it makes me very upset. I try not to think about it if at all possible… I feel sick in my stomach every time I hear about it or read it.

“The posts referred to above about going to my house, gang-raping my wife, taking my children and grandchildren hostage, robbing my house and sprinkling anthrax over the house are deeply upsetting things to read.”

Julian Knowles J ruled then that HHJ Simon had been the victim of a “malicious and damaging vendetta” and an injunction should be imposed to restrain Mr Shaikh from harassing him further.

Delivering judgment in Oliver v Shaikh [2020] EWHC 2253 (QB), the High Court heard that HHJ Oliver accused Mr Shaikh of breaching the injunction and applied to have him committed for contempt of court in June this year, through the Government Legal Department (GLD).

The GLD wrote to Mr Shaikh in January this year complaining about breaches of the injunction. Nicklin J held a telephone directions hearing in June this year in respect of the committal application, which Mr Shaikh did not attend.

This was followed by a physical hearing of Mr Shaikh’s adjournment application at the Royal Courts of Justice on 27 July.

Nicklin J said Mr Shaikh did not attend and the court had received no further communication from him since 22 July. He has continued to argue that he is innocent.

At the hearing Nicklin J refused to adjourn and went on to hear the committal application.

To the criminal standard of proof, he found that Mr Shaikh had breached the injunction on 20 occasions, dismissing six other alleged breaches of the injunction.

He concluded that he was “sure that the defendant’s denials that he is the webmaster of the JBB website are false”.

Nicklin J said a further hearing would consider the penalties to be imposed on Mr Shaikh. The judge added: “The defendant should consider his position very carefully. The court has found him to be in contempt of court.

“The continued publication of the JBB website represents an ongoing defiance of the court. If, by the time of the penalty hearing, the JBB website (and other material the defendant has been ordered to remove) has not been removed, that will be a serious aggravating factor.”