Doughty Street Chambers have a press release on their front page about Bruce Hyman. It reads:
There have been several false press reports that Bruce Hyman, a barrister who has pleaded guilty to an attempt to pervert the course of justice, was a member of Doughty Street Chambers. Mr Hyman was in fact a pupil, attached to Doughty Street Chambers only for a few months of his training period, having successfully completed a 12-month pupillage at Blackstone Chambers. He resigned before he could be considered for membership of Chambers and nobody here had any inkling of his criminal behaviour.
Frankly they should have said so earlier, as the rest of us were left to make do with items such as this, this (third column from the left, bottom), this and this, some of which are from Doughty Street, all of which clearly identify Hyman with Doughty Street or ‘at’ Doughty Street.
Certainly rumours have been circulating about Hyman and Doughty Street since news of his guilty plea broke. That would have been the time to clarify matters.
Although this actually makes matters murkier. Some accounts say that Hyman only resigned from Chambers when told to by the Judge in the criminal proceedings. Does this mean he was still a pupil at that point? Was he therefore a pupil when he was acting in the case that was his downfall?
Nice smearing of Blackstone Chambers in the press release, though.
[Edit 20/09/07. In the comments to this post, a barrister with knowledge of the history has confirmed that Hyman was a pupil, probably third six, and given some background to the mitigation argument and Hyman’s resignation from Chambers.]