A drunken human rights lawyer who is involved in the Grenfell Tower inquiry launched a racist attack on her neighbour after spending all day drinking with her barrister boyfriend, a court has heard.
BBP London Law School graduate Scarlett Milligan, 31, is accused of grabbing concerned neighbour Kemi Adebiyi’s neck and calling her a ‘black b****’ when she enquired why the lawyer was lying in the road wailing after midnight.
She had been drinking locally in Wandsworth, London since 1.00pm with commercial and chancery counsel boyfriend Benjamin Waistell, 33, but they had had a row and she found herself locked out of his home in Cromford Road.
‘This case concerns an allegation that Ms Milligan, during an altercation, directed racial abuse towards Ms Adebiyi and physically assaulted her by grabbing her neck,’ prosecutor Nicholas Hearn told Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court.
‘She denies that the abuse extended to racial abuse and denies physically assaulting Ms Adebiyi and says it was the complainant who assaulted her.’
Milligan, who is attached to Essex Chambers and attended Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Royal Grammar School, has pleaded not guilty to racially-aggravated assault in the early hours of May 1, 2022.
After enquiring about Milligan, 48-year-old officer manager Ms Adebiyi was told to ‘f*** off’ by Mr Waistell, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer with XXIV Old Buildings and the couple ended up in her front pathway.
Parts of the incident were recorded on next-door’s Ring doorbell and Ms Adebiyi’s mobile phone and were played to the jury, who heard shouting and swearing on both sides.
Milligan can be heard shouting at Ms Adebiyi, who has a 15-year-old daughter: ‘Shut your door you ugly c***,’ and: ‘You f***ing ugly tw*t.’
No racial abuse was recorded on video.
When cross-examined by Milligan’s KC David Etherington Ms Adebiyi was asked: ‘There is nothing racial that we hear is there?’
Mr Hearn explained: ‘Ms Adebiyi heard a commotion outside in the street and heard a woman’s voice wailing loudly and she went outside to see if the woman needed any help.
Milligan is recorded replying: ‘Sorry if me being suicidal is bothering you,’ and Ms Adebiyi replies: ‘We all have mental health issues darling and we don’t all do this s***.’
Ms Adebiyi dismisses Milligan’s behaviour as attention-seeking and Mr Waistell interrupts: ‘Sorry someone being sad is disturbing you. F*** off.’
‘What follows is a deeply unpleasant altercation for several minutes on the path to the front door,’ said Mr Hearn. ‘Bad language is used by all three.
‘The Crown say it is Milligan and Waistell who were both far more abusive and aggressive and Milligan had to be physically restrained by Waistell as she lashed out at Ms Adebiyi with her hand raised.
‘Ms Adebiyi says Ms Milligan charged towards her and assaulted her by grabbing her neck and the altercation continued in her hallway.
‘Ms Milligan says Ms Adebiyi assaulted her by grabbing her hair and dragging her into the doorway and closing the door and Mr Waistell picked her up and carried her into the street.’
This part of the dispute was not recorded by the complainant, who was using her phone to call the police at the time.
She reportedly made the allegation that she had been called a ‘black b****’ seven months later.
When police arrived they found a drunken Milligan crying in the street, complaining that Ms Adebiyi had dragged her into the property and kicked her in the head.
Milligan, who in legal publications has been described as a ‘Tier One Rising Star’ and won the Inner Temple Princess Royal Scholarship to fund her Bar qualifications was arrested and spent time in a police cell.
In her statement to police she said: ‘I was drinking throughout the day and by the evening I was drunk. I had an argument with Ben and he left the pub.
‘I couldn’t access Ben’s address because of the bottom lock and I became very upset and was lying in the middle of the road crying.’
She said an ‘abusive black woman’ confronted her saying: ‘If you’re going to kill yourself, get on with it.
‘The lady continued to hurl abuse at me and she became more and more heated with her abuse.
‘I ended up in her doorway and the next thing I remember is being pulled by the hair over the threshold of her address. The woman struck me and I was savagely kicked to the head, I think I lost consciousness.’
Milligan complained that clumps of her distinctive red hair had fallen to the cell floor and she had swelling to both sides of her head. ‘I did not deserve to be viciously attacked and then arrested,’ she said.’
Throughout the footage, which was played to the jury Ms Adebiyi can be heard mockingly referring to the couple as ‘Tarquin’ and ‘Karen,’ suggesting Ms Milligan was feigning a mental health episode.
She is heard shouting: ‘You think you can enter my home and attack me? This is typical white privilege. She’s seeking attention, she’s a typical Karen, an attention seeker.
‘I came out to try and help and Karen began railing on me and then Tarquin decides to come over here and enter my home and rescue Karen.
‘I am going to stream this. You’re going to lose your jobs you f***ing racists.’
In her tirade she continued: ‘Tarquin pushed me over and I hit my head on the back on the wall.
‘That girl was trying for an Oscar, but she wouldn’t have made it past Brookside.’
Ms Adebiyi told the jury Milligan called her either a ‘black b****’ or ‘black bint’, and also made fun of her silk headscarf by calling it a turban.
‘I believe there were racially-tinged insults throughout. She made threats about kicking my head in and the next thing I knew she was in my door grabbing my neck, causing scratches and I grabbed her hair.
‘The door gets violently slammed open by her partner, slamming me into the wall. He is built like a rugby player.
‘I am sure he has a face for his high value clients, but that is different from the angry, contorted face I saw.’
Mr Etherington suggested to Ms Adebiyi: ‘You yanked her into the flat. You ‘lost it.’ She falls to the ground and you start kicking her in the head.
‘That is when her partner comes in the door. She is shouting for him and she is scooped up by Mr Waistell and he carries her out.’
The trial continues.