FIRST central criminal court judge from an Asian background, Anuja Dhir is a member of Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) and is counted among UK’s highly select groups of judges.
She was appointed to JAC as a judicial member in June 2018. In May 2021, she was reappointed to this position along with two others. She began her new three-year term in June 2021. Her part in JAC includes selecting judges to sit in trials in England and Wales.
Along with her role in JAC, Dhir also presides prestigious court of the Old Bailey,- the UK’s most prominent criminal court. Prior to being a JAC, Dhir was appointed as a Circuit Judge in 2012 and a Recorder in 2010. In 2018, she was authorised to sit in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division.
In the Old Bailey courtroom, Dhir presides over the most heinous kinds of criminal cases, including murder and terrorism. She is also authorised to try cases that are held ‘in camera’ (in private) for reasons of national security.
However, when she began her career as a barrister just getting into courtrooms was a problem. As she has recalled in multiple interviews, she was often mistaken for a defendant or witness when she first entered the judiciary.
In her words, she was even forced to produce her wig and gown oncebefore security allowed her in. In those days, the profession was dominated by mostly white public school educated men with connections.
While defendants now seek Dhir’s favour as she dons the robes of a circuit judge at the Old Bailey as the first non-white person as well as the youngest person to fill the role, there was a time when most clients did not want a “young, Asian, Scottish female” representing them, she said.
However, things are changing and in fact have come a long way over the last 30 years, Dhir has stated, pointing out an illustrative example how in court recently, she found herself trying a case in which one of the barristers was another Asian woman, implying there were two Asian women present in court at the Old Bailey at the same time with key roles in a major case- something that would have been very unusual a few decades ago.
Born and brought up in Dundee, Scotland by her Hindu Punjabi father and Gujarati mother, Dhir was educated at Harris Academy, a state school. Recalling her school days, Dhir said famously that she was advised to try a career in hairdressing when she told her teacher she wanted to go to university.She grew up expecting discrimination and had to break down personal and social barriers to make her way in a profession dominated by white men.
Later, she graduated from Dundee University with an LLB in English and Scottish Law. Once she finished her degree, she sat for her Bar exams. She was called to the Bar in 1989. She practised as a barrister for 23 years, mainly in crime and from 2007 as a special advocate in national security cases.
After having intense experience of practicing at the Bar for more than two decades and developing a deep expertise in crime and public law, Dhir “took silk” and became a judge in 2010. She was appointed a Circuit Judge in 2012.
Along with a huge responsibility that comes with trying the most serious cases, Old Bailey judges are also usually under a heightened level of public scrutiny for the punishments they hand out.
Dhir found herself at the centre of such a controversy in December 2018 when she gave a two-year suspended sentence to a youth who had brandished a hunting knife at a motorist in Croydon. The incident was captured on camera and was circulated on social media, drawing criticism and leading to calls for the young man to be jailed and even a petition calling for Dhir to face a sanction for being “too lenient.
Dhir is a freeman of the City of London, a member of the Haberdashers’ Company, a member of the London Symphony Orchestra board, and a governor of both the City Academy Hackney and the Haberdasher Borough Academy.
She was a member of a number of Bar Council committees, including the equality committee, the professional conduct committee and the law reform committee.
She also has been involved in advocacy training in the UK and abroad for over 20 years. In 2015 she was appointed as a Tutor Judge for the Judicial College.
She has been heavily involved in advocacy training in the UK and abroad-she was head of teacher training for Gray's Inn and has led training in India, Sri Lanka, Jamaica (for death row cases), Bermuda, Bhutan, Malaysia, Singapore, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
A governor of the Hackney City Academy School since 2016, Dhir also serves as a Court Assistant of the Haberdashers' Company- one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies, which is an ancient merchant guild of London.
She is married to Nicholas LavenderKC who was appointed a High Court Judge (QBD), and knighted, in 2016, making her notionally entitled to the formal style of Lady Lavender, which she does not use.
Dhir is dyslexic, something that she said she realised after her daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia. In her words, all the signs were there, but it had not been picked up at school when she was a child. She feels it is her dyslexia that makes her better in being able to understand people and accommodate defendants and witnesses who have complex needs.
