A trainee solicitor found on duty at a police station with cocaine on him has been told he can no longer work in the profession.

William Bowes Mawdsley, a trainee with Buckinghamshire firm Hine Solicitors, was convicted at Wiltshire Magistrates Court in April 2018 of possessing a class A drug.

Mawdsley, who had been with the firm for five months, was also convicted of driving a motor vehicle with excess alcohol, and being in possession of a class B drug, cannabis.

According to an SRA notice, Mawdsley had driven to a police station as a police station representative, but was breath-tested while he was there and found to be over the limit. He was also found to have the cocaine in his possession.

The SRA notice records that Mawdsley was dismissed by the firm in January 2018 and is not currently working for any authorised firm.

He was found in breach of SRA principle six, namely to behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in him and in the provision of legal services.

Due to his conviction, the SRA handed Mawdsley a section 43 order, effectively banning him from working for any regulated entity without the regulator’s permission.

This is the second section 43 order issued against a trainee solicitor within a matter of weeks. On the other occasion, Reading-based Olivia Philp had represented a client at a police station interview, then for a further six weeks, but ‘provided inaccurate and inconsistent explanations to both the firm and the SRA, as to the nature and extent of her relationship with this client’.