A solicitor has been cleared by a tribunal of dishonesty after asking a client’s father, whom he considered a friend, to lend him £6,000.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that Douglas Frame, admitted in 2011, acted with a lack of integrity in not advising the father to take independent legal advice - but rejected the SRA’s pleading that Frame had accepted the money as a fee for his client’s employment case.
Following a hearing lasting a day and a half, the tribunal found that Frame did not ask for the client’s father, Baden Bull, to pay fees directly to him. Instead the panel accepted Frame’s submission that he asked Bull for help to pay school fees, and he had gone to Bull for the loan rather than ask members of his own family.
The panel opted to fine Frame £2,000 and ordered that he pay £5,000 costs. Written reasons for the decision will be published in around seven weeks.
The tribunal heard on Tuesday that Frame, formerly with Essex firm Hill & Abbott, had spoken on the phone with Bull in early 2018. Bull, now 77, repeatedly stated in his evidence that he did not intend to lend Frame any money and that the £6,000 included VAT, so had to be for counsel fees. He said in his statements that he believed Frame to be self-employed, although the tribunal heard there were questions about whether Bull had read or even signed all the statements.
Frame suggested the case against him had been a ‘stitch-up’ and accused Bull of being ‘extremely aggressive and vindictive’.
Giving evidence to the tribunal, Frame said it had been agreed that he would repay the loan at a later date. He accepted that Bull had sent a cheque for £6,000 to his home address but said there was no question of this being anything other than a loan.
‘I knew our friendship was at a point where I could have [asked for a loan],’ he said. ‘Do I look back now and wish I had taken all the steps I could have done? Yes I do. At the time I didn’t see [anything wrong with it]… it did not dawn on me at that stage to go through the process.’
For Frame, solicitor advocate Jonathan Goodwin said his client had given a ‘consistent explanation’ that Bull had agreed to lend the money. The SRA’s case, in contrast, was built on testimony from Bull that was ‘incorrect, uncoherent and simply unreliable’.
In mitigation, Goodwin said Frame offered his sincere apologies for failing to advise Bull to take independent legal advice. Given that the ‘poison’ of the SRA’s dishonesty allegation had been removed by the tribunal’s findings, he urged the panel not to restrict Frame’s ability to practise and said he retained the full support of his current firm, Norwich-based Fosters Solicitors.
The SRA applied for £23,550 in costs and submitted that the case was reasonably brought. Goodwin said that the regulator should have done more to check the veracity of Bull’s allegations and that the prosecution could be described as a ‘shambles’.
