Solicitor, Re A
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE KARMINSKI,LORD JUSTICE ORR |
| Judgment Date | 27 March 1972 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1972] EWCA Civ J0327-3 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 27 March 1972 |
[1972] EWCA Civ J0327-3
The Master of the Rolls (Lord Denning)
Lord Justice Karminski and
Lord Justice Orr
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Appeal of the solicitor from Order of the Queen's Bench Division on 14th February, 1972.
Mr. GERALD OWEN, Q.C., Mr. R.P. GROUND and Mr. I.E. JACOB (instructed by Mr. Leslie A. Fawke) appeared on behalf of the Appellant Solicitor.
Mr. F.J. AGLIONBY (instructed by Mr. Roger H. Bradfield of Maidstone) appeared on behalf of the Law Society.
This is an appeal a solicitor against the findings and order of the Disciplinary Committee (soon to be called the Disciplinary Tribunal) relating to solicitors. The solicitor has been in practice for some forty years. The complaint against him is that he has not complied with the solicitors' accounts rules. Those rules require a solicitor to keep his clients' moneys separate from his other moneys and to keep his clients' accounts separate from his office accounts. The rules also require the solicitor to have his accounts checked each year by a qualified accountant. The accountant must give a certificate each year that the rules have been complied with. Otherwise the solicitor will not be entitled to a practising certificate, The solicitor in this case employed Mr. Barrett. He gave certificates for each of the years from 1967 to 1970. He certified that for those years the solicitor's accounts complied with the accounts rules, except in certain trivial respects.
In September 1970 the Law Society themselves appointed an accountant to inspect the books. The Law Society's accountant fou nd that the books had not been mitten up since the year 1967. When he asked the solicitor about it, the solicitor referred him to Mr. Barrett. The Law Society's accoun ant asked Mr. Barrett about the books. Mr Barrett admitted that the books had not been written up. He said that he had not been able to do it because he had been ill. He took the blame on himself. He admitted that he had given certificates when he ought not to have done so. He said he had misled the solicitor.
Although the books were not written up, the Law Society's accountant did not find any money missing. He did not find any indications of any mis-use of clients' funds.
In consequence two charges were laid before the Disciplinary Committee:- (1) failure to keep the books properly written up in accordance with the accounts rules. (2) Professional misconduct in not keeping books of account in proper form. Three hearings were held (some criticism has been made of the shorthand note: but I think the substance of it appears sufficiently from the transcript.) On the first hearing on 8th July 1971, the Disciplinary Committee decided to give him opportunities of putting his bocks in order. The Chairman said to him: "We have decided that the best thing to do is to adjourn this case until Wednesday 6th October at 10 a.m., when we want to be satisfied by you that you have in your office by that time a proper system of bookkeeping so that your books are kept up to date regularly and so on. If you can come before us with evidence (? an assurance) to that effect on that date it is uniikely that the Committee will consider anything like striking off or suspension from practice". 6n 6th October 1971, the solicitor cane again. He said he could give an assurance that the books were up to date. The Chairman said that the Committee asked for evidence and not an assurance. But as there had been a misunderstanding, the Committee adjourned the case to 10th November 1971, so as "to enable the solicitor to produce evidence from an accountant the present accountant, to say that his books now comply with the system and that they are up to date. On 10th November 1971, the solicitor came with a new accountant, Mr. Munday. He was a chartered accountant. He had only seen the books a week before. He said: On my examination last Thursday they all appeared to be posted up to date. The bank accounts are reconciled with the bank statements of the clients and No, 1 account". In cross-examination he admitted that his examination of the books was only brief, and that his main interest was to see that they wereposted up to date. He was asked by one of the members of the Committee: "When do you expect to be able to send forward a certificate or report up to the 31st March. 1971?". He answered: That I would not like to answer. I have to go back to four years. I would not like to give a date how long it is going to take". He hoped it would be before March 1972.
The Disciplinary Committee evidently thought that they had given the solicitor every chance to put things in order and that they could not adjourn the hearing any more. They gave their findings in writing on 16th December 1971. I will read the whole:
"The Committee find the allegations to have been substantiated. It may be that the respondent was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that his accountant, Dir. Barrett, for reasons which are not clear to the Committee, felt able to (rive him unqualified accountant's certificates or reports, but the respondent can hardly have been wholly...
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