The following clarification was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday September 16 2007

In the article below, we tell the story of Bruce Hyman, the barrister found guilty of perverting the course of justice after sending a bogus email during the course of a family law case. We say: 'Even after Hyman was arrested, documents show that he continued to work on the case and picked up his client's daughter from school at least once.' His client, Karen Sanders Young, has asked us to make clear that Mr Hyman collected her daughter from a nursery only once, on 19 September last year, and that he has not worked for her since his arrest on 30 October. We repeat that there is no suggestion that Ms Sanders Young knew of his plan to send the email.

The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday September 2 2007



The article below was wrong to state that barrister Bruce Hyman was chief executive of Above The Title Productions. Mr Hyman resigned as a director of the radio production company in January. This has been corrected.

A barrister and renowned radio and television producer, who has worked with the likes of Anthony Minghella, Michael Frayn and David Mamet, is facing jail after being found guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Bruce Hyman has pleaded guilty to attempting to falsely incriminate the husband of a client he was representing in the family court. If jailed, it is believed it would be the first time that a barrister had been sent to prison for such a crime.

His admission of guilt represents a remarkable fall from grace for a man who has produced more than 150 plays, musicals and comedy shows and written scripts for Angus Deayton and Johnny Vegas. Stars such as Maureen Lipman, Patricia Hodge and Peter Capaldi have appeared in Hyman's productions, which include The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for Radio 4.

He also produced Unreliable Evidence, the acclaimed BBC radio series, fronted by his close friend Clive Anderson, that examines complex aspects of the law. As a practising barrister, Hyman was able to bring a wealth of knowledge to the programme, which attracted the biggest names in the legal profession.

But in an act that seems worthy of discussion on Anderson's programme, Hyman emailed a bogus legal judgment he had forged to his client's former husband, who was trying to gain greater access to the couple's daughter.

The email, sent from what Hyman thought was an untraceable address, carried the logo of Families Need Fathers, the charity that campaigns for fathers' rights. It appeared to bolster the father's claim that he should be granted greater access to his daughter and, believing it to be a genuine judgment, he presented it before the judge at Taunton family court in Somerset.

Within minutes of doing so, Hyman pounced, suggesting not only that the judgment was a forgery but that the father, who was representing himself, might have been responsible for faking it. The father suddenly found himself facing a charge of perverting the course of justice and the prospect of having to pay substantial costs.

'I cannot describe the feelings that went through me,' the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told The Observer. 'To be accused in court of what the judge had no trouble reminding me was a serious crime was horrendous. I was frantic, panic stricken; not to mention angry.' Baffled as to how such a 'mistake' had been made, he learnt that electronic documents could be traced via specialist online applications. Soon he had tracked the email via an internet server in Manchester to a shop in Tottenham Court Road in London.

The shop denied sending the email and offered to check its CCTV footage for the day the email was supposedly sent. 'I couldn't believe it when they emailed me some 12 or 13 of the CCTV stills,' he said. 'I almost fell off my chair.' The pictures showed Hyman entering the shop, removing a motorcycle helmet and sending an email from a laptop. It seemed an open and shut case. 'But the police would not investigate initially,' said the father, who was eventually put in touch with a helpful police officer by a Families Need Fathers member. 'As it was, my local force didn't follow up my report until some months after Hyman's arrest. If FNF hadn't put me in touch with a police officer who took the case seriously, I might well have been facing a lengthy prison sentence.'

What motivated Hyman, a happily married man with four children, to break the law in a way that could have sent an innocent man to prison is not clear. He is not a specialist in family law, nor is he from the area where the case was heard. Further, he had passed his bar exams only a couple of years earlier and the case was one of his first.

With a home in Hampstead, London, and a chalet in the Alps, which he is believed to have sold recently, he was wealthy and had an enviable social life. His dinner parties were eagerly anticipated, thanks to his skills in the kitchen and ready wit. It might have been that he took the case because he knew his client extremely well. The two had set up a company together shortly after the beginning of the millennium and they had known each other for many years. Even after Hyman was arrested, documents show he continued to work on the case and picked up his client's daughter from school at least once.

Records obtained by the police show Hyman telephoned the mother on the day he emailed her ex-husband the fake judgment. Although arrested, the mother was not charged and there is no suggestion she knew of his plan.

Hyman, who faces sentencing on 19 September, declined to comment, but those who know him express bafflement at what he has done. They say that after passing his bar exams he seemed to change his image. 'He was in love with the law in the way some middle-aged men are in love with the idea of being a rock star,' said an acquaintance. 'When he became a lawyer some of his friends started to see a lot less of him.'

Meanwhile, the father has been left deeply bruised by what has happened. He still does not see his daughter as much as he would like. He is disillusioned with the courts system. 'Anyone who contemplates going through the family courts system should consider pulling their own fingernails out instead; it's less painful,' he said. 'Appearing at these private hearings, where parties and their lawyers too often seem to have the smearing of their opponents at the top of their agendas, robs you of your dignity and your belief in the system.'

Fathers' rights groups say the case highlights concern about the closed nature of the family courts. 'There's a lot of what I call "micro-shittiness" in the family courts,' said Jim Parton of Families Need Fathers. 'There are low-level acts of bullying by the lawyers in the corridors that go on all the time, but none of it gets reported.'