Report of potential serious professional misconduct by Lord Hermer KC.

Report of potential serious professional misconduct by Lord Hermer KC, His Majesty’s Attorney General for England and Wales

Letter to: The Investigations and Enforcements Team l The Bar Standards Board by Nick Timothy, MP for West Suffolk

I write in my capacity as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice to report a matter which, on the documentary evidence published by The Telegraph on 22 April 2026, may constitute serious professional misconduct by the Attorney General, Lord Hermer KC. I ask the Board to investigate.

On 22 April 2026, The Telegraph published more than 25,000 pages of contemporaneous emails and legal documents concerning Lord Hermer KC’s role as lead counsel for eight Iraqi claimants in the Al-Sweady litigation against the Ministry of Defence. The Al-Sweady Public Inquiry (HC 818, 17 December 2014) found the core allegations of murder and torture by British troops to be “wholly without foundation” and “entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”. Every British soldier was exonerated.

Four features of the documentary record are of particular concern.

First, Lord Hermer KC took the case under a conditional fee arrangement, not under the cab rank rule. He chose it, and stood to earn a substantial fee, including a success uplift, if the claims succeeded. He continued to provide legal advice in the case long after knowing the claims to be almost certainly without foundation.

Secondly, on 17 February 2008 he wrote to Martyn Day of Leigh Day advising on a draft press release alleging murder and torture by British soldiers. He said the proposed line “works in getting the balance between making sure that the big story is out there whilst giving us somewriggle room if the killings did not in fact happen”, and asked whether the release needed to be “slightly more explicit” about “executions of prisoners” in order to “generate sufficient interest”. Mr Day forwarded his advice to Phil Shiner asking, “do we need to up the ante?”. Mr Shiner replied, “I think R [i.e. Lord Hermer KC] is right, so let’s up the ante.” A line alleging witness torture and execution was then added to the press release. Guidance gC27.3 of the Handbook defines recklessness as “being indifferent to the truth, or not caring whether something is true or false”. This advice is a clear breach that was intended for personal gain by increasing the publicity around Lord Hermer KC’s instruction.

Thirdly, by March 2013, Mr Day had written to Lord Hermer that it was “odds-on likely” that the Inquiry would find the claims to be “nonsense” and had privately described the claimants as “lying Bs”. Notwithstanding this, Lord Hermer KC advised on 6 March 2013 that counter-offers of between £45,000 and £55,000 per claimant against the Ministry of Defence would be “low risk”, and approved a letter to the claimants advising them that it would be “foolish to reject” the Ministry’s settlement offer. Public funds were at stake.

Fourth, Lord Hermer KC has maintained, including in 2017 evidence to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in support of Mr Day, that the claims remained viable “as a matter of law” and “regardless of credibility issues”, and that it made no difference whether his client was “a saint or a member of al-Qaeda”.

This conduct engages, at the least, Core Duties 1, 3 and 5 of the BSB Handbook, and Conduct Rules rC3, rC8 and rC9, together with the corresponding provisions of the 8th Edition Code of Conduct in force at the material time as to whether the Attorney General knowingly or recklessly misled third parties and the court, drafted or approved documents alleging grave criminal conduct by British soldiers without reasonably credible material, and continued to press for taxpayer-funded settlements after being told his clients were lying. Put simply, the case was not properly pleadable and should never have been advanced

I recognise the Board’s ordinary 12-month period for reporting. The 25,000 pages now relied upon entered the public domain for the first time yesterday. Until then, neither I, nor the public, nor Parliament, was in a position to assess this conduct with the evidential precision now available. The subject is the serving Attorney General. Both limbs of the exceptional-circumstances test are, I respectfully submit, comfortably met.

Lance Corporal Brian Wood MC, decorated by Her late Majesty the Queen for gallantry at the Battle of Danny Boy and then falsely accused of executing prisoners, has called publicly for Lord Hermer KC’s resignation. Ms Hilary Meredith, who represented a number of the soldiers falsely accused, has called for an inquiry by the Board. The public interest in thorough and independent regulatory scrutiny could scarcely be higher.

I accordingly ask the Board to treat this letter as a formal report under Part 5 of the Handbook; to exercise its discretion to investigate notwithstanding the 12-month period; to obtain the complete documentary record from The Telegraph, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Leigh Day; and to refer the matter, if the evidence warrants, to a Disciplinary Tribunal.”

Nick Timothy l MP for West Suffolk

Shadow Secretory of State & Shadow Lord Chancellor