A paralegal who forgot to send an email on time and then tried to cover up her mistake has been restricted from working in the legal profession.
Brooke Middleton, who worked for London immigration firm Eversage Associates Limited, was supposed to send an email at 7am to a Home Office Priority Service to secure a priority slot. This responsibility was shared between the staff on a rota basis.
In August last year, it was her turn to send the HOPS email but she failed to do so, later admitting her mistake to colleagues. The following day, she again forgot to send the email on time and eventually sent it at 8.45am – too late to be effective at securing a priority slot.
Two colleagues sent her a message on Teams asking if the task had been done on time, to which Middleton replied that she had.
The paralegal, who had worked for her firm for just over a year, then uploaded the HOPS email she had sent at 8.45am to the firm’s case management system and manually amended the time entry to show that the email was sent at 7am.
The attempted cover-up was discovered the same day and Middleton was dismissed for gross misconduct the following day.
Her conduct was reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which has now put restrictions on where and when Middleton can work in a regulated firm. The section 43 notice restricts her from working in the profession without the SRA’s prior written permission. She must also pay £600 costs.
