You have to push legal boundaries

- 14 May 2005;Used with kind permission of the Observer

CAMPAIGNING lawyer Sarah Harman says she has the legal profession in her genes.

Her mother Anna — the other Harman in her law firm's name of Harman and Harman. — trained as a barrister in the 1940s, a time when women were extremely rare in the occupation. Two of her sisters are also lawyers and a third — Harriet — is the well-known MP who made Solicitor General.

Sarah has made a name for herself taking on large organisations, such as the medical establishment, in the courtrooms. Among other high-profile cases she has represented the victims of cancer smear test errors at Kent and Canterbury Hospital and the women sexually abused by disgraced doctor Clifford Ayling.

"My mother studied law at Oxford during a period when it really was a male dominated profession," Sarah said.

”Some lecturers even said it was a waste of their time teaching her and refused to do it. So they had to get people in from elsewhere. But she always maintained the law was a very good profession for women so that influenced me. I studied sociology at the University of Kent before switching to law in the third year. But when I qualified and entered the profession I knew it was right for me.”

Mum-of-three Sarah started her firm in Canterbury in 1982 with her own mother who was practising law in London.

She said: "Very early on in my career I had an interest in family issues, such as child protection. I found that one case led to another, you get a reputation for dealing with certain issues and people start to come to you not just locally but across the country. One early case concerned allegations of child abuse where the evidence was minimal, yet social workers had taken the `blunt instrument' option of taking the child away. The affair ended with the child going back to the family and I started to feel that when things go wrong in the home it is very often the mother that takes the brunt of the blame.

It is very often that vulnerable women find themselves on the wrong end of a rough deal and I feel it is easy for public bodies to pick on them. "I don't want to sound worthy — in fact I find it very personally rewarding to represent them and I thoroughly enjoy it.” Sarah established her firm in her image recruiting like-minded people and she is proud of what they have achieved together.

”For a small legal firm it punches above its weight as the saying goes," she added.

The two most prominent cases Sarah has been involved with are the smear test blunders and the Ayling abuse scandal.

She said: "Like many other women I received a letter out of the blue saying my test might have been misread — and naturally I was scared. There was an implication that cancer may have been missed. The answers were not forthcoming from the hospital and an effort was being made to cover up how serious the mistakes were”.

Sarah said when the case went through the courts and its full seriousness was revealed, it led to the screening process being tightened up nationally.

The investigation revealed eight women may have died as a result of the blunders and another 30 woman were forced to have life-saving hysterectomies in a bid to beat cancer which was not diagnosed early enough. Sarah ended up representing almost a hundred of those women affected.

She said: "I felt proud to be part of something that led to changes being made for the better and I was also proud my clients were prepared to go as far as they did.”

Clifford Ayling had already been convicted of sexual abuse of patients when Sarah took up the case on behalf of his victims.

”What shocked me was that he had been sacked by three hospitals prior to setting up himself, all for abuse allegations," she said. “There was no way that his new employers could have found out what happened. Now, again, procedures have been tightened up.” More recently Sarah has found herself in a controversial situation when she passed on information on a family case to sister Harriet. It was at the request of a mother who wanted her case to be reconsidered and denied suffering from Munchausen Syndrome.

”I was very severely criticised by a High Court judge who accused me of being in contempt of court," she said. "But my actions came out of a mother's desire to see her case re-examined. "Now partly as a result of that action the law is going to be changed "I feel if you are going to be a campaigning lawyer — and that is how I see myself — you have to push the boundaries and although the results are worth it it can cause problems. "People sometimes ask me: `how can you sue the NHS when it is so in need of funds?' "I have the greatest possible respect for dedicated medical professionals, but if no one questions things when they go wrong how will anything ever get better?”