A dual-qualified lawyer based in Jersey has been disbarred after receiving a prison sentence for fraudulent activity at his solicitors’ practice.

Kevin Robert Manning, called to the bar in 1985, pleaded guilty to 20 counts of fraudulent conversion and one count of fraudulent conversion by a trustee in 2018, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. He was also found to have failed to keep accurate client records over a six-year period.

According to a bar tribunal judgment, Manning took money from eight curatorship accounts and a trust which he controlled to make up for a deficit in his firm’s client account.

The tribunal also found that Manning failed to tell the Bar Standards Board that he had been charged with a criminal offence or that he had been removed from the roll of solicitors in Jersey. It concluded that Manning had engaged in conduct which was dishonest or otherwise discreditable to a barrister, and/or likely to diminish public confidence in the legal profession or the administration of justice or otherwise bring the legal profession into disrepute.

Commenting on the order to disbar, a BSB spokesperson said: ‘All members of the bar have a duty to act with honesty and integrity and the tribunal’s decision to disbar Mr Manning reflects the seriousness of his offences.’

The decision is open to appeal.