The chambers alleged that Person A, a former credit control manager at the set, used their position to steal money from a bank account that was used to pay fees due to barristers. The missing money was revealed in a High Court judgement, as Judge Charles Morrison set out that Person A had signed a statement in which they “candidly admitted to [their] wrongdoing – [they] had indeed taken the money and now bitterly regretted it”.
They had indicated that any money they had taken was spent on their lifestyle.
Judge Morrison said that “Until June of this year, [Person A] had responsibility for the bank account into which fees due to barristers were paid, and for ensuring that those funds were then paid on to the relevant barrister”.
After their departure from the set, the chambers started discovering that “during the past five years, [Person A] had stolen in order of £2.75m from the bank account”.
The hearing took place on 19th September, where Person A represented themselves and posed no challenge to the freezing order of their assets. The judge told that they showed “no little signs of distress”. He continued, stating that, “[their] demeanour was consistent with the approach taken in [their] written evidence which was that they could not quite come to terms with the scale of [their] wrongdoing which [they] could now so very clearly see.”
The initial freezing order on Person A’s assets was dealt with in private earlier in September, the chambers pushing for the matter to be kept private for at least another four weeks.
The set explained that the breaking news of missing money could “put at risk the integrity of the Chambers as a going concern.” All current members of chambers have been notified of the alleged fraud, however, former members are still oblivious. A representative for the chambers argued that former members “might make claims for sums unpaid to them, despite not having any continued obligation to meet the expenses of Chambers”.
The representative continued: “A spiral of decline could thus be the result of members of the Chambers arriving at the view that they should not be the last to leave.”
Judge Morrison concluded that the matter should be public no matter how inconvenient it was for the chambers.
