MANCHESTER CROWN COURT: former partner stole £1.2m from van driver involved in accident


A solicitor accused of stealing more than £1 million from a disabled client to fund a life of extravagance has been found guilty of fraud.



The stolen money was refunded in full to the client from the Law Society's compensation fund.



Thomas McGoldrick, 59-year-old former partner at McGoldricks, was convicted of 53 counts of false accounting, two counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, one count of forgery and three counts of money laundering, at Manchester Crown Court last Friday.



The court heard that McGoldrick stole £1.2 million from his client Keith Anderson, a van driver who was awarded £1.8 million in compensation following a road accident in 1996 which left him paralysed from the waist down.



He persuaded his client to leave the money in the firm's client account rather than putting it in the bank or investing it.



Over the next two years, McGoldrick plundered the account to fund his champagne lifestyle and struggling business, which had debts in the region of £1.4 million. He sent his children to private school, took foreign holidays, drove luxury cars and lived in a large house in Cheshire.



McGoldrick forged a letter purporting to be from Mr Anderson gifting him the money to thank him for the work his firm had done.



The client became aware of the problem in 2004, when he called the firm expecting to have in excess of £1million in the account, to be told the money was gone.



McGoldrick also created false accounts for his firm, exaggerating his profits to obtain money on 13 credit cards and 33 loans.



Judge Roger Thomas QC said McGoldrick had been convicted on 'overwhelming evidence' and a significant custodial sentence was inevitable. He is due to be sentenced on 7 April.



The Law Society's regulatory arm repaid the stolen money to Mr Anderson in 2005 from its compensation fund. His firm, which had offices in Altrincham and Croydon, had been investigated by the Law Society for financial irregularities in 1997 after more than £40,000 went missing from a client's account. This was followed by a series of other misdemeanours relating to his accounts and the financial management of the firm, but he was allowed to carry on practising until December 2004 when the Law Society finally closed it down.



A spokesman for the Solicitors Regulation Authority said: 'Regulators can base their adjudications only on what has already happened, not on what might happen in the future. Previous decisions concerning McGoldrick presumably seemed appropriate to those making them at the time.'



Catherine Baksi