An employment solicitor has denied acting dishonestly over a cheque for £6,000 sent to his home address by his client’s father.

Douglas Frame yesterday told the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal that the sender of the cheque was fully aware the money was a loan to help Frame with outstanding school fees.

During an often fractious first day of the tribunal hearing, Frame accepted it had been a mistake not to advise the father to take independent legal advice but denied  acting dishonestly.

The tribunal heard evidence from 77-year-old Baden Bull, whose daughter had spoken with Frame over a potential employment claim in 2018. Bull, who previously had an amicable relationship with the solicitor, sent a cheque for £6,000 to Frame’s home address for what he said he believed to be counsel’s fees. The money was paid into Frame’s personal account.

Under cross-examination, Bull repeatedly stated 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 statement that he believed Frame, who was employed by Essex firm Hill & Abbott at the time, to be self-employed.

But Bull also conceded that he had not written the statements prepared by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for the tribunal and even suggested that one of them had not been signed by him.

At one point, the hearing had to be stopped as Bull was questioned by Frame’s representative Jonathan Goodwin. Bull had told Goodwin: ‘I am telling you what is going on. You do as you’re told. I am not a money lender,’ and was asked to rein in his language by the tribunal.

Following Bull’s evidence, Goodwin applied to the tribunal to rule that Frame had no case to answer. The solicitor-advocate said Bull’s testimony had been ‘wholly unreliable, confrontational and inconsistent to the extent there was even a question whether signatures were his and what he had reading his statements before signing.’

The tribunal rejected the application, except to remove the allegation that Frame falsely said he was self-employed.

Called then to give evidence himself, the solicitor of 11 years suggested the case against him had been a ‘stitch-up’ coordinated by his former firm and by Bull and his family. He accused those making accusations against him of lying and said Bull had been ‘extremely aggressive and vindictive in the way he has portrayed me’.

Frame said: ‘I can hand on heart say that if Mr Bull had said that money was for counsel fees I would have said to send it to Hill & Abbott. I was extremely grateful to him at the time [for the loan] and it was a relief. There was absolutely no way in the wide world he was under any misapprehension at all.’

The hearing continues. 

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