White barrister gets £30,000 in discrimination claim

A senior white barrister who claimed to have been the victim of race discrimination has received a £30,000 payout from the Crown Prosecution Service.

This week the same senior prosecutor will attempt to bring a second case against the CPS. His application includes further allegations of discrimination and victimisation. The first claim was settled out of court.

Last year an independent investigation found the CPS guilty of institutional racism and a few weeks later the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir David Calvert-Smith QC, stated during a radio interview that he believed everyone in Britain was racist.

Anthony Baldwyn, a white senior crown prosecutor, has been paid an estimated £30,000 as an out-of-court settlement after he accused the CPS of racism when an Asian lawyer was appointed to head the European and International directorate of the service.

Mr Baldwyn, who is being backed by the National Black Crown Prosecution Association (NBCPA), alleged that the selection procedure for the unadvertised post was flawed.

On Thursday he begins his second claim against the CPS at an employment tribunal in Croydon, south London.

Maria Bamieh, a founding member of the National Black Crown Prosecution Association, said yesterday her organisation was backing Mr Baldwyn because his treatment showed "nothing had changed" since the Commission for Racial Equality first threatened to investigate the service after a number of successful race claims by black and Asian staff. She added: "He is one of our members who has fallen foul of the same rotten procedures which have been working predominantly against our members since the inception of the CPS."

In July last year an 18-month inquiry by Sylvia Denman, a leading academic lawyer, concluded: "Institutional racism has been, and continues to be, at work in the CPS."

It is estimated that the CPS still faces 20 more race discrimination claims which have been lodged at employment tribunals. Confirmation of Mr Baldwyn's first settlement emerged during the hearing of another race claim brought by a member of the NBCPA against the CPS.

In a supporting statement given to the tribunal earlier this year Mr Baldwyn, a former policeman who was called to the Bar in 1977, claimed the "integrity of recruitment to the European and International directorate was flawed from the outset". In his settled legal action Mr Baldwyn claimed that he had wide experience in international and European work.

A spokeswoman for the Commission for Racial Equality said that last year it received 130 applications from white people asking for assistance in bringing claims for discrimination. Not all of those were supported by the commission.

James Davies, an employment partner at the law firm Lewis Silkin and a member of the Employment Lawyers Association working group on discrimination, said that employers had to realise there was a fine line between positive action and positive discrimination.

"While positive action to increase the proportion of certain groups is lawful, positive discrimination, to give preference to under-represented groups, is not," he said.

A Whitehall source said that civil service grades, including those in the CPS, were transferable between jobs and it was common for senior lawyers to go from one department to another.