Air shame lawyer speaks out on racism

Dr Raj Jandoo, an advocate and part-time sheriff, said that since September 11 British Asians could no longer go about their business without arousing suspicion.

Jandoo, who was once tipped to become Scotland’s first black judge, added that he feared for the future of his children in a country where being anything other than white raised suspicions.

During his trial, it was suggested by the defence that passengers over-reacted to Jandoo’s conduct because of the colour of his skin. That argument was rejected and on Friday he was fined 2,500.

But his conviction has angered many leading figures in Scotland’s Asian community, who are openly asking whether a white person would have been treated the same way, and warning of a backlash from ethnic minorities.

Jandoo, a 47-year-old father of four, faces career ruin after being found guilty at Stornoway Sheriff Court of causing fear and alarm on an aircraft, including telling an air hostess: "I hope we have no problems with bombs today, eh?"

He was also found guilty of acting in a manner likely to endanger the Edinburgh to Stornoway flight on March 15 last year when he stood up in the aisle and rummaged in overhead lockers as the plane was preparing to land.

The court heard that while the plane was grounded at Inverness, as Jandoo spoke on his

mobile phone he was heard to say: "These bloody repressed people up here, they are not used to seeing coloured people and they think I am a terrorist going to bomb their plane."

In an exclusive interview, Jandoo told Scotland on Sunday: "British Asians cannot go about their business any more without arousing suspicion. There has been an atmosphere of fear and suspicion engendered by this government against anyone who looks Asian."

Jandoo, a practising Christian, added: "What is a Muslim supposed to look like? What are we going to have? One queue for blacks, and one for whites? Or one for Asians and one for everyone else? What kind of a country is that going to be? What do I tell my children about the country they are growing up in?"

Bob Chadha, a North Lanarkshire councillor and a former member of the Strathclyde Police Board, said: "Many of us in the Asian community find what happened very worrying. There is a strong feeling that he was singled out because of his colour. I fear that this will feed a backlash from younger members of the community, who were born in this country and who think they are being picked on. I believe there should be an independent inspectorate to oversee court judgments to give the ethnic minorities confidence in the legal system."

Jyoti Hazra, the former chairman of the Scottish Council for Racial Equality, who won an MBE for his equal rights campaigning, said: "There should be an inquiry. Had a white Raj stood up in the plane, it would have been ignored. It looks like there has been a concerted campaign to discredit him. He was judged to have been mentally unwell and was still forced to stand trial."

But Nasir Jaffri, the chairman of the Scottish Asian Network, said: "I’m not sure it would have been any different had it been a white guy. This seems to have been someone who got out of bed the wrong side and then things went downhill from there. It’s very sad but as a lawyer he should have known better."

'What will we have next? One queue for blacks and another for whites?

IN EVERY sense, Dr Raj Jandoo was a long way from home. Instead of a Daks suit and Harrods shirt he was wearing a T-shirt, boxers and socks. And instead of his fabulous four-storey home in one of Edinburgh’s most affluent suburbs he was locked up in a dark, urine-stained cell inside Stornoway police station.

It was 3am on March 16, 2004, and Jandoo was in deep trouble. The leading advocate, part-time sheriff and inspiration to thousands of Scottish Asians, had been hauled off a flight after making remarks about bombs.

A year later he is a convicted criminal with his career in extreme peril.

But anger is growing in the Asian community that Jandoo only ended up in this situation because of the colour of his skin. Highly respected leaders of the same community are calling for an inquiry into his prosecution and openly questioning whether a white person who behaved in the same way would even have been arrested.

Jandoo, in an exclusive interview with Scotland on Sunday, reveals he has suffered racist attitudes throughout his legal career, including when, in 1991, he was called to the bar and asked if he planned to practise law in Scotland.

"It was an odd question because no one else was asked that. There was a practice that black lawyers would qualify at the Scottish bar and then go to a Commonwealth country to practise. But why direct that question to me? I was born in Glasgow, studied at Glasgow University, did a PhD at Glasgow, did my bar training at a leading Scottish firm. Why ask me that?"

Jandoo’s brilliant career unravelled on March 15 last year as he flew from Edinburgh to Stornoway to preside over a drink-drive case on North Uist.

The flight stopped off in Inverness. While the plane was on the tarmac, Jandoo took a call from his partner, Catriona Munro.

As the new set of passengers filed onto the aircraft, Jandoo felt he was being stared at because he was speaking on his mobile. Annoyed at the attention, he said: "Everyone’s staring at me. It’s as if they haven’t seen a black man before. They must think I’m a terrorist or something."

Other passengers began to shout at Jandoo and demanded he should be thrown off the plane. Then, as the plane neared Stornoway, after the passengers had been told to sit and put on their seatbelts, Jandoo got up to and rummaged in his locker.

Last Friday, he was convicted of causing a breach of the peace by his remarks and of breaking aviation rules by getting up after the seatbelt light was on.

Jandoo refuses to discuss the specifics of the case for fear of prejudicing his appeal but he feels free to talk about racism in Scottish society.

"On my first day studying law at Glasgow University, the lecturer asked me as I was leaving whether I was studying law or not. I was the only one asked and he was surprised when I said yes. He thought I must be an art student doing a law subject. Of course, we couldn’t study law, you see.

"And then in another class, one of the lecturers remarked, ‘Of course, I wouldn’t employ any Asians in a law firm. They all know each other’."

Jandoo is not alone in his dismay at such attitudes. John Denning, a solicitor formerly with the leading Edinburgh firm Gray Muirhead, knows Jandoo and gives a particularly chilling example of racist attitudes among some of his fellow professionals.

He said: "I recall a couple of days after Raj became an advocate, another member of the bar said to me, ‘Any old wog can get a job at the bar nowadays’. It shook me. I was appalled."

One of the highlights of Jandoo’s career was his report into the Chhokar case, the murder of an Asian waiter in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, in 1997. Three men were acquitted after blaming each other. Jandoo’s report was scathing of the police and Crown Office.

Jandoo told Scotland on Sunday: "The Chhokar inquiry report was completed by me the day before September 11. In equal measure blacks and Asians feel that they have been subjected to unfair suspicion and considerable scrutiny since these tragic events. There is an understandable need for vigilance, but that vigilance must not be applied in unfair manner to the detriment of members of those communities."

Jandoo, who is keen to stress that only a minority of Scots are racist, said: "Since September 11, race relations in Britain have been damaged and much work has to be done to achieve understanding and sympathy for those who seek to enjoy the fruits of living in an otherwise safe country."

Jandoo studied two years of medicine at Glasgow University before switching to study law at the same institution. He gained a PhD in medical negligence and then lectured in law in his home city before going to the bar in 1991.

In 1997 tragedy struck. His wife Jo was horrifically injured in a car accident and left in a vegetative state. She remained on a life support machine systems until dying from septicaemia in 2000.

Those close to the lawyer believe he has never recovered from the trauma and during the trial the defence argued that the psychological legacy of the tragedy left him mentally ill.

Munro, Jandoo’s partner, says she has experienced first-hand the treatment meted out to the lawyer. She said: "During one trip abroad with the children and my parents, they [airline staff] noticed I was travelling with Raj, we all had to come forward individually to explain who we were. Even the children had to come forward one by one and explain who they were, one of them was just eight years old."

In Scotland’s Asian community, many ponder whether the same laws apply to black and white.

Jyoti Hazra, the former chairman of the Scottish Council for Racial Equality, said: "We should experiment with having white people get up to look in their lockers when the light is on. I doubt somehow that they would be treated like Raj was."

And Osama Saeed, the Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, is worried that cases will fuel extremism among younger Asians. "You feel it more and more all the time," he said.

A Scottish Executive spokesman said: "There is absolutely no evidence to back the assertion that there was a racist element to this case."