A four-year saga featuring threatening emails, overturned allegations of dishonesty and a High Court battle has ended with no further action being taken.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal decided to make no order against experienced solicitor Peter Maxfield Martin after accepting his ‘moment of madness’ defence relating to an email sent in anger. The tribunal also accepted that Maxfield Martin had served part of a suspension before successfully appealing that sanction.

The ruling brings to an end almost four years of disciplinary proceedings which started when Maxfield Martin’s firm, south Wales practice Gomer Williams & Co, dismissed him and reported him over the circumstances of his re-accreditation application to the Law Society’s mental health panel.

A previous tribunal had ruled that Maxfield Martin acted dishonestly by entering the name of his line manager on the form without approval. That finding – as well as the tribunal’s sanction of a 12-month suspension – was overturned earlier this year in the High Court, when Mr Justice Soole ruled that Maxfield Martin had believed he was authorised to act as he did.

The court’s decision left one matter still to be resolved: Maxfield Martin’s admitted conduct in sending an email to his firm’s managers once it became clear they were reporting him.

A reconvened tribunal heard last month that Maxfield Martin had written that he would be ‘completely frank’ with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, suggesting ‘that in all the circumstances Gomer Williams would be better served by immediately withdrawing the allegation made’. He added that this withdrawn complaint could be explained ‘on the basis of a simple misunderstanding’.

Maxfield Martin, a solicitor since 1989, did not accept he was trying to coerce the firm into withdrawing its report but admitted the language and content of the email was ‘ill advised and intemperate’. He had believed he was being unjustifiably attacked and his professional standing undermined by a long-running breakdown in his relationship with the firm.

Before the tribunal, he said the email had been a ‘moment of madness’ but was sent at a time when he feared the loss of his livelihood.

The tribunal’s ruling said: ‘The motivation at the time Mr Maxfield Martin sent the email was to threaten the firm into withdrawing the complaint. However the tribunal accepted that he was angry and fearful at the time he sent it and he did not follow through on his threat, even though the firm did not withdraw the complaint. There was no breach of trust and the email was not planned.’

The expected penalty would have been a £2,000 fine, but given that Maxfield Martin had already been suspended for six months and 20 days between the tribunal’s original order and the successful appeal, it was decided not to impose any further sanction. The tribunal added it was satisfied there would be no repeat of this conduct. No order was made as to costs.

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