When she began her career as a lawyer in the 1980s, Anuja Ravindra Dhir knew she was in for a long struggle. Currently the Old Bailey's first non-white circuit judge, the 49 year old said she was often mistaken for a witness or a defendant. "When I first said to a teacher at school, I wanted to go to university when I was older, she told me that I should aim a little lower and suggested I try hairdressing instead," she said.
"My daughter, it would never cross her mind being treated differently because she's a female or because she's not white, whereas in my generation we did. We were surprised when people didn't treat us differently. Not now, but when I came to the bar, I was not expecting to be treated like a white Oxbridge male at all."
She informed that clients at first refused to be represented as a young Asian Scottish female. One would think the treatment would change once she became a circuit judge, in February. But Judge Dhir informed that she once even had to produce her wig and gown before security allowed her into court. "I got used to turning up at courts and people saying to me 'Witness? No. Defendant? No.' They looked rather surprised when I said I was the advocate."
With 15 judges in the Old Bailey, only five of them are women, three of which were the most recent intake. "I'm often asked if there is a glass ceiling. I think sometimes there are two ceilings- or no glass ceilings at all. There is one glass ceiling that's in our minds, that's what we think we can achieve so perhaps we impose our glass ceiling and that, has happened to me several times."
