Roll on Friday
The former London Managing Partner of KWM has been cleared of kissing a paralegal without consent while they were both drunk.
Darren Roiser was prosecuted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority over a disputed kiss that took place on 15 October 2020.
Roiser organised a boozy night out the day before a Covid lockdown was imposed as a last minute celebration for five members of his disputes practice who hadn’t been able to make a team picnic earlier in the year.
Conceding that he “certainly spent more than other partners on entertainment”, he ordered drinks for the group which included espresso martinis, three bottle of wine and G&Ts.
When they moved on to the MNKY HSE in Mayfair for dinner, he ordered more wine, tequila shots, champagne, and a bottle that was accompanied with music, sparklers, and a procession of dancing staff.
“I was and remain quite shocked by the amount of alcohol consumed”, he later told the firm.
One team member described Roiser as “drunker than the rest of us”, saying that on a scale of 1 to 10 for intoxication, he was a “9.5 or a 10”.
“He was dancing, his eyes were glazed over, he was slurring his words and boisterous”, they said. Roiser put himself at a more conservative 7 out of 10, and said he was “reasonably drunk”.
‘Person A’, a 24-year-old female paralegal, alleged that she left the restaurant first and was waiting for the others in an alcove outside when Roiser joined her.
“He very suddenly grabbed both of my arms tightly with his hands between my elbows and shoulders, pushed me back against the wall, kissed me on my mouth and put his tongue in my mouth”, she alleged.
“When he kissed me, he did so with such force that I was pushed back up against the wall. The back of my head hit the wall”, she claimed.
Person A said she immediately pushed Roiser away and asked him words to the effect of, “what are you doing?”, to which he replied, “you are very attractive”.
Person A was “extremely intoxicated” herself, later describing herself as having been “blind drunk”.
The bouncers would not let her back in to the venue to retrieve her belongings because she was so inebriated, and after she shared a cab to the flat of a colleague, Person C, with another colleague, Person B, she repeatedly vomited over the sofa and herself.
Person B alleged that Person A told him inbetween throwing up in Person C’s bathroom that Roiser had “made out with me”. However, when he met her three days later, she only had a recollection Roiser had behaved inappropriately and “couldn’t remember what had happened”.
“I then told her what she had told me in the bathroom at [Person C’s] house”, said Person B. “It was surprising to me that she didn’t have a stronger recollection. I think she said her impression was it made sense given how she was feeling, but that she had effectively blacked out and forgotten some of the details”.
Roiser’s defence argued that it was not credible that four years later Person A had developed a “clear recollection” of the incident.
In his closing submissions, Roiser’s counsel also raised the possibility that Person B may have been in a relationship with Person A which influenced his testimony, as Person C’s partner stated that she “heard what sounded like kissing noises from inside the bathroom”.
Roiser denied grabbing Person A and claimed that in fact the paralegal followed him outside and kissed him, not the other way around.
The solicitor, who was 40 at the time, conceded that he kissed her back for a couple of seconds.
“I don’t know why I didn’t immediately jump backwards”, he said. “I realised it was obviously wrong and I should not be kissing Person A, and I should stop it immediately”.
Asked why he didn’t report the incident to the firm, not least to protect himself from any allegations, Roiser said it was “an embarrassing moment outside a bar when we were all drunk”, and that he didn’t want to cause Person A more embarrassment by escalating it. “I should have raised it”, he said.
Roiser didn’t tell his wife, either, “because I was embarrassed and ashamed”.
When Person A made a complaint to the firm, Roiser apologised after seeking advice from KWM’s London General Counsel.
Roiser explained to the tribunal that he decided it was appropriate to say sorry even though he had not instigated the kiss, as “I shouldn’t have been that drunk. No-one should have been that drunk. I should have stepped away immediately”.
Clearing Roiser this week, the tribunal chastised him for organising such an alcohol-drenched evening.
It said his brief engagement in the kiss was also “inappropriate” given both his seniority in relation to Person A, and because he had procured an “excessive” amount of alcohol which facilitated her extreme intoxication. “He should have exercised control and better judgment”, said the tribunal.
But it said the charges that he grabbed Person A’s arms, held her against the wall, put his tongue in her mouth and called her attractive were not proven, nor had it been established that he instigated the kiss.
The tribunal ruled that no breaches had occurred and dismissed the case, describing the SRA’s four year delay in bringing it as “unhelpful”.
