According to The Guardian, barrister Stephen Akinsanya was stopped by a security guard at an east London court about four weeks ago and told the car park was reserved for staff, not defendants. Akinsanya, an OBE recipient, raised the incident on a Criminal Bar Association podcast. He noted it echoed a similar moment in 1993 when he was mistaken for a defendant at the same court as a junior lawyer.
A justice system built on impartiality has a credibility problem when basic assumptions about who belongs in a courtroom still track along racial lines. If a senior Black barrister with national honors can be read first as the accused, the message to younger lawyers and defendants is clear: status does not shield you from prejudice at the courthouse door.
Akinsanya's account matters because it fits a pattern. The incident is small in scale but familiar in type. A moment that exposes how institutional culture lags behind stated values. Courts love the language of impartiality. Culture is where that claim gets tested.
The guard's mistake is not the problem. A Black barrister told "it's not for defendants" at a London court car park in 2026 should shock the system into change. It hasn't. Until courts treat this as a structural failure rather than a training gap, the justice system will keep signaling to defendants of color that they are assumed guilty before they walk through the door.
Filed to the World desk · 4 days ago