Barrister accused of inflating claimant’s losses reported to BSB by judge

A barrister who signed off on particulars of claim that proved to be false has been reported to his regulator by the court.

Mr Alan Bates, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court in Kevin Demirci Properties Ltd v Huw Griffiths Architects Ltd, said the conduct of the unnamed barrister was so serious that a copy of the ruling should be sent to the Bar Standards Board.

The lawyer, referred to as Barrister M, signed a statement of truth on behalf of the claimant pleaded that his client had suffered losses of more than £13.5m, when pre-action correspondence had identified the figure at around £6.5m.

The court heard that Barrister M had been instructed in July 2022 to assist on a claim from a developer of student accommodation in Swansea.

After a period of several months of emails being exchanged between the claimant and Barrister M, culminating in them even arguing in his chambers about the scale of the potential loss they would be pleading, the particulars of claim was filed.

The judge noted this was ‘not a high quality document and contained multiple inaccuracies’, for example repeatedly misspelling the claimant’s name and including several typos.

The defendant raised issues with the pleadings and by June 2024, the relationship between the claimant and his barrister was said to have ‘greatly frayed’ over the perceived lack of transparency about what was happening with the case.

The claimant terminated his retainer with Barrister M in the same month and instructed a different firm of solicitors.

The judge said he accepted the account given by the claimant about how the misleading particulars of claim came to be drafted and observed that dealing with Barrister M would have been ‘very stressful’. The draft document was provided so late that the claimant had not been able to review and discuss them.

The judge said Barrister M had failed to make appropriate inquiry into the facts of the case or to confirm the true value of pleaded losses from the claimant.

‘It thus appears that Barrister M signed the statement of truth without having obtained client instructions to do so and at a time when the drafting process was still ongoing,’ he added. The judge said the BSB should carry out its own investigation to establish all the facts and decide what, if any, regulatory action should be taken.