British lawyer fined for anti-Semitic rant

JTA — A British lawyer who said she “cannot stand Jewish people” during an office rant was found guilty of discrimination by a disciplinary panel.

In a ruling published last week, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in London fined Danielle Morris, 34, some $3,840 and ordered her to pay $8,060 in costs for the 2009 remarks, according to a report by the Lancashire Telegraph daily newspaper.

Her comments came after a Jewish man cut in line at a medical center before Morris, an assistant solicitor at Mulderiggs Solicitors in Rawtenstall near Manchester and mother of two.

Morris later commented to a receptionist at her firm, “I cannot stand Jewish people.” A Jewish colleague heard the comment and asked Morris “not to say that.” But Morris replied, “I don’t care; I cannot stand them ever since an incident at the Bardoc [medical center].”

Morris’ lawyer said in her defense that she had “not been aware of the long history and persecution of the Jewish people and because of her age had had limited direct contact with those who had been familiar with the discovery of the Holocaust or the attitudes which had led to those events.”

The tribunal said it heard that she now had a “greater understanding of the offense that she had caused and the context in which her remarks could be seen.”