Barrister is fined £250 for giving ‘Heil Hitler’ Nazi salute and saying ‘jawohl’ at end of criminal trial

• Thomas David Davidson carried out the offensive gesture while in court last year

A barrister has been fined after putting on a German accent and raising his hand in Nazi salute while in court. 

Thomas David Davidson was at Salisbury Magistrates’ Court on 7 February 2022, when he ‘looked at the bench and said ‘Jawohl’, meaning ‘yes’ and often associated with the military, at the same time as using the offensive gesture.

Davidson, a practicing barrister based in chambers on Fleet Street, London, had just finished a trial during which he had imitated a German accent before a bench of three Lay Magistrates. 

After the Chairperson raised the issue of his ‘inappropriate’ use of a fake German accent, Davidson engaged in the ‘seriously offensive and discreditable’ conduct, during which he carried out the Sieg Heil salute, according to the Bar Standards Board (BSB). 

Davidson, who spent 24 years as an immigration tribunal judge, was fined £250 by the independent regulator on 21 November, and will also have to pay costs of £1,750.

Thomas David Davidson was at Salisbury Magistrates’ Court on 7 February 2022, when he ‘looked at the bench and said ‘Jawohl’ at the same time as the using the offensive gesture

The veteran barrister, who was called to the bar in July 1973, ‘behaved in a way which was likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in him or in the profession’, according to the BSB’s disciplinary findings. 

The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute, or Sieg Heil salute, was used as a greeting in Germany during the Nazi rule under Adolf Hitler. The extremely offensive gesture, associated with fascism, is now illegal in modern-day Germany. 

While it is not technically a criminal offensive to carry out the salute in the UK, it is considered a form hate speech. 

The decision by the regulator is open to appeal, and Davidson has 21 days to submit this. 

The full report by the tribunal, which would shed light on how it came to its decision, is yet to be published.  

Davidson’s legal specialisms are crime, employment, family, immigration, intellectual property, residential landlord and tenant and personal injury.

MailOnline has approached Mr Davidson for comment.  

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