Defence lawyer fined £2,000 after asking rape victim if she had narcissistic personality disorder
Defence solicitor Lorenzo Alonzi has been fined after a Faculty of Advocates committee found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct during a cross-examination in a rape trial in 2022 in Glasgow.
According to the BBC, Alonzi, who had been representing the defendant, repeatedly crossed the line while questioning rape victim Ellie Wilson. The remarks made by the attorney were upsetting to such a level that Wilson subsequently decided to file 11 complaints with the advocates’ committee.
The majority of the complaints, six of which were ultimately deemed unsatisfactory professional conduct, regarded the way Alonzi spoke to Wilson during questioning and in his closing remarks. At one point, Alonzi was accused of “abus[ing] the privileged position” he held by asking Wilson if she had narcissistic personality disorder, despite there being no report or diagnosis of the condition.
After the defendant, Daniel McFarlane had been found guilty of rape, Alonzi proceeded to tell the court his client “fell in love with the wrong person,” that he didn’t belong in court and that it was “difficult not to imagine some sense of injustice in it all.”
Interestingly, Alonzi has shown zero signs of remorse following the committee’s decision to deliver the £2,000 fine and order him to pay Wilson £1,000 in compensation.
Indeed, the committee has stated that Alonzi did not appear to clearly and unequivocally accept any wrongdoing or offer an unreserved apology.
Wilson spoke with the BBC about the situation, and while she expressed that she wished Alonzi had been served a harsher punishment, she was more upset about the attorney’s attitude towards the entire ordeal: “Alonzi has expressed no remorse for his actions and seems more concerned with the damage to his reputation rather than the harm he’s caused. It’s difficult for me to feel a sense of closure when there’s no apology.”
The rape allegedly occurred sometime between 2017 and 2018 when both McFarlane and Wilson were students at the University of Glasgow.
