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Date posted on UnjustIS

Did knifeman lay in wait for 10 hours?

THE knifeman who brutally stabbed an Edinburgh law chief outside his home may have lain in wait for his target for ten hours, police said today. One week after the attack on 62-year-old Leslie Cummings, detectives said they were more convinced than ever that the stabbing was the work of a hit man or someone else bent on revenge.

Edinburgh Evening News

31 Jan

Second-hand PCs help ID thieves

People are putting themselves at risk from identity theft by failing to remove personal information from computers before they get rid of them, a report has warned.

This is London

31 Jan

In-house work set to dent lawyers' earnings

Lawyers' hopes of increasing earnings from litigation and arbitration could be dashed by their clients' plans to cut spending on dispute resolution, according to research published today.

Financial Times

31 Jan

Football scam bank staff jailed

Two bank workers who stole from the accounts of three Manchester City footballers have been jailed.
Paul Sherwood, 26, and his 20-year-old supervisor Paul Hanley made a series of withdrawals from the Co-op Bank. The pair diverted about £320,000 from the accounts of Djamel Belmadi, Daniel Van Buyten and Vincente Vuoso.

BBC

30 Jan

Reported fraud 'at 10-year high'

Reported fraud in the UK has reached a 10-year high, with cases involving a total of almost £1bn reaching the courts, according to a study.

BBC

30 Jan

Countdown for nasty Windows virus

PC users have been urged to scan their computers before 3 February to avoid falling victim to a destructive virus. On that date the Nyxem virus is set to delete Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Acrobat files on infected machines.

BBC

30 Jan

DISHONEST SOLICITOR STRUCK OFF

A DISGRACED solicitor has been struck off after borrowing tens of thousands of pounds from dead clients' estates. A Law Society disciplinary tribunal found Adrian Gerard Donkin, a trusted solicitor for 30 years, had acted dishonestly by misusing money in customers' accounts, as loans for himself. Donkin, whose three-and-a-quarter acre home in Boldon Lane, Cleadon, is up for sale for £950,000, was also slammed for taking a £25,000 personal loan from a grieving woman too upset to accept inheritance money after the death of her brother.

Sunderland Today

28 Jan

Knife attack law chief names solicitors under investigation

THE Edinburgh law chief who was stabbed in a frenzied knife attack has given detectives the names of two solicitors he was investigating. The development comes as police confirmed today that the stabbing of 62-year-old Leslie Cumming may have been a revenge attack carried out by a hired "hitman".

Edinburgh Evening News

28 Jan

WHERE THERE'S CASH THERE'S CORRUPTION..

BENT lawyers? Surely some mistake? Aye right. When I was a nipper I used to think that lawyers had to be the most honest people in the world. But then I also believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
The simple childlike logic went that they were the folks upholding the law, the law told you what was right and wrong so they had to be good guys, didn't they? The weird ideas we get as weans, eh?

Glasgow Daily Record

27 Jan

City warned of growing legal dangers

The City watchdog has issued a stark warning to banks and hedge funds over the dangers inherent in complex financial instruments that account for a growing proportion of their activity.  The Financial Services Authority warned yesterday that esoteric products such as derivatives were creating fraud opportunities and raising the risk of legal disputes and mis-selling complaints.

Financial Times

27 Jan

Gang held over huge postal cheques fraud

POLICE today smashed a gang at the centre of a multi-million-pound post office cheques fraud.

Detectives raided addresses in Streatham, Croydon and Tottenham at dawn. A gang of asylum seekers are accused of masterminding the theft of thousands of items of post containing personal chequebooks, credit cards and social security cheques.

This is Money

27 Jan

Solicitors attack plan to end LSC support

Legal aid practitioners have this week hit out at the Legal Services Commission (LSC) over ‘appalling’ plans to do away with its specialist support service, condemning it as an ‘immeasurable’ blow to access to justice.

Law Society Gazette

27 Jan

Police target rogue lawyers after bid to murder Law Society official

POLICE investigating the attempted murder of a senior legal official have drawn up a list of aggrieved clients and rogue lawyers amid a growing belief that his work holds the key to the vicious knife attack.
Leslie Cumming, 53, the chief accountant with the Law Society of Scotland, was repeatedly stabbed outside his Edinburgh home at around 5pm on Monday.

The Scotsman

26 Jan

Knife attack may have been linked to fight against organised crime

Detectives are investigating whether a knife attack on a senior official from the Law Society of Scotland was linked to his role in the fight against organised crime. Les Cumming had been working against money laundering alongside colleagues from the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency and the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Police are treating the attack as a pre-meditated attempted murder.

Scottish TV

25 Jan

Anti-scam website saved by MEP

A Member of the European Parliament, Richard Corbett, has stepped in to save the anti-scam website www.stopecg.org - which was forced offline by legal threats to its service provider. Server Centre, and its upstream supplier RapidSwitch, decided to pull the website after a flurry of legal notices from Birmingham solicitors Wragge & Co.

The Register

25 Jan

You'll be jailed for theft from clients

A DISGRACED solicitor who plundered more than £143,000 from clients was yesterday warned he faced jail. Stephen Pulston Williams, of Holborn Road, Holyhead, admitted four charges of theft, three of false accounting, and one forgery charge. The 50-year-old was the senior partner in the longstanding law firm of Prothero Williams with offices in Valley, Holyhead and Bangor. He was struck off in 2002, after he admitted using clients' cash for his own use, leaving a £172,000 black hole. The firm, closed down by a legal watchdog, was later taken over.

IC North Wales

25 Jan

Incapacity benefit - Welfare reform Green Paper

The Government launched a Green Paper "A new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work" on Tuesday 24 January 2006. This is a landmark document for the Department in meeting its objectives of promoting opportunity and independence for all. It contains major new proposals to help individuals achieve their potential through work. The green Paper can be downloaded in full from the Department for Work and Pensions web site, link on right.

DWP

25 Jan

Law society official injured in frenzied knife attack

ONE of Scotland's top legal figures was the victim of a frenzied knife attack by a hooded assailant outside his home

The Herald

25 Jan

Public deserve a better deal from lawyers

In a recent Which?, survey 52 per cent of people who'd used a lawyer in the previous three years said they'd be put off making a complaint if it was to another solicitor.

Which? Press Release

24 Jan

Judicial Appointments Commission revealed

The government has today unveiled the members of its inaugural Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), the new body that will take responsibility for appointing judges in England and Wales. The Department for Constitutional Affairs, which will hand over judicial appointment procedures in April, has revealed that Brick Court Chambers’ joint head Jonathan Sumption QC and former Law Society President Edward Nally have been named as the two professional members of the new independent 14-member body.

Legal Week

23 Jan

Falconer ends 700 years of history

Seven hundred years of legal history will be brought to an end today when Lord Falconer announces that he will be giving up his judicial powers in the spring.

Telegraph

23 Jan

Government asks senior judges to review controversial Law Society conflict rules

The long-running tussle over proposals for a major revision of the legal conflict rules has taken another twist, after the Government last month drafted in a panel of judges to advise on the plans. The move comes after a government advisory body raised concerns in November about a proposed new set of conflicts rules that was drawn up by the Law Society last summer...

Legal Week

19 Jan

INVESTIGATE: CONFIRM SILENCES WEBSITE

A WEBSITE that campaigns against an international scam has been forced to close down.
Set up by Swansea businessman Jules Woodell, www.stopecg.org warned about the European City Guide...

Mirror

19 Jan

FSA to impose harsher penalties on rule breakers

The Financial Services Authority is preparing to hand out higher fines to companies and people that break its rules, amid suggestions that the watchdog's penalties are being viewed as a "cost of doing business".

Financial Times

19 Jan

Shutters still down on ‘closed shop’ for lawyers

The Scottish Executive has taken the unprecedented step of resorting to the courts to block the release of sensitive documents which could explain why Scotland's legal services market has never been opened up to greater competition.

The Herald

19 Jan

Three held over lawyer's murder

Three men were arrested last night by police investigating the murder of the lawyer Tom ap Rhys Pryce.

Telegraph

19 Jan

Prescott backs campaign to pay sick miners in full

JOHN PRESCOTT has thrown his support behind a campaign to gain justice for sick miners who were exploited by solicitors involved in a £7.5 billion government compensation scheme. The Deputy Prime Minister is among a group of MPs and peers who have joined forces to condemn law firms that grew rich by deducting money from payments made to elderly pitmen suffering from chronic chest diseases.

Times Online

19 Jan

Transport chief to face grilling

London's outgoing transport commissioner Bob Kiley is to appear before the London Assembly.
The former CIA agent is expected to face questions over his leaving package, including a £745,000 pay-off.

BBC

18 Jan

Customs staff investigated following collapse of trial

Six employees of Revenue & Customs are being investigated over their role in a £100m VAT fraud trial that collapsed, with a High Court judge accusing the prosecution of “muddle, incompetence and lack of frankness”.

Financial Times

18 Jan

Online benefit fraudsters leeching hundreds of millions from taxpayer

IT HAS become the ultimate tax black hole. The tax credit system, championed by Gordon Brown as a means of helping the poorest in society, has cost the taxpayer almost £46 billion.

Times Online

18 Jan

Workers' IDs stolen in £16m tax fraud

In what could be one of Britain's biggest benefit frauds, one in seven staff at Network Rail have had their identities stolen and used for false claims, plunging the tax system into chaos.

This is Money

18 Jan

Solicitor in missing £3m probe

A SOLICITOR and his wife are being investigated after around £3m disappeared from the accounts of a Leeds law firm.

Leeds Today

17 Jan

Revenue reveals tax fraud levels

HM Revenue & Customs halted 38,924 suspect tax credit applications between April and November 2005, the Treasury has revealed. More than half these cases are believed to have featured attempts by gangs of organised fraudsters to obtain cash.

BBC

15 Jan

Millionaire 'preyed on the weak'

John Damon Gizzi was a millionaire who portrayed himself as a legitimate builder and property tycoon.
Gizzi, 34, who has been jailed for five and a half years, lived in a lavish mansion near the A55 in north Wales and drove a £100,000 Bentley, had long been tormenting people in Rhyl.

BBC

13 Jan

Solicitor stabbed to death on London street

A solicitor for one of the country’s leading corporate law firms was murdered in a "vicious and gratuitous" attack less than 100 yards from his front door. Tom Rhys Pryce, 31, who worked for Linklaters, was stabbed to death in an apparently random attack in Bathurst Gardens, northwest London,...

Times Online

13 Jan

Fraudster could have to pay £98m

A tax fraudster who cost the Inland Revenue £55m could have to pay back £98m or have 10 years added to his 12-and-a-half-year jail term. Ian Leaf, 51, was jailed last month following conviction on 13 counts of fraudulent trading from 1991 to 1996.

BBC

11 Jan

High Court approves service of a lawsuit by email

Emails that initiated legal proceedings were ignored as spam by a shipping firm. It was a costly oversight: the firm lost the case without taking part and an English judge has rejected a late challenge, ruling that service by email is just as valid as post or fax. The significance of the case, decided 21st December, is limited: this was a maritime arbitration, not an English court action. That would be subject to different rules, rules that generally do not permit the service of writs by email.

Out-Law.com

10 Jan

British lawyers linked to $1m payment for favours at US Congress

A British law firm is at the centre of the investigation into America's biggest influence-buying scandal in decades. The London-based solicitors, James & Sarch, channelled $1 million (£565,000) into a conservative United States pressure group linked to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist.

Telegraph

08 Jan

Trapped by 367% interest loan

When Peter and Vivien Gudgin borrowed against their home, they thought they were buying financial freedom in their retirement. Now, only a few years later, they are left bitterly regretting their decision.

This is Money

08 Jan

Law Society could vanish amid revamp

SOLICITORS are facing the biggest organisational upheaval in their professional history with the break-up of the 165-year-old Law Society and its multimillion-pound empire. The move could see the sale of half its headquarters at Chancery Lane, a prize asset, and the axing of the 105-strong council, as well as other cost-saving measures. The functions of the society, the professional body for 100,000 solicitors in England and Wales, will be split and its complaints service hived off to a new, independent consumer-focused complaints board.

Times Online

07 Jan

Mystery of leading lawyer's suicide leap from hotel

A SUCCESSFUL Rolls-Royce corporate lawyer leapt 100ft to her death from an hotel in a public suicide. Friends and neighbours of Katherine Ward, 52, were mystified last night why the vivacious, talented and wealthy solicitor took her own life.

Times Online

05 Jan

Judges 'guilty' over fraud case costs

Judges, not juries, are to blame for the "enormous" cost of big fraud trials, according to an unpublished report by senior barristers. Ensuring that complicated cases are tried briskly by specialist High Court judges instead of leaving lower-ranking circuit judges to flounder with them is just one reform proposed by the Bar Council working group.

Telegraph

05 Jan

BDO warns of surge in employee fraud at Christmas

Many more British companies are likely to have an unhappy start to the new year, with fraudsters expected to have been busier than ever over the Christmas break. The accountants BDO Stoy Hayward Bank warned yesterday that employee fraud is spiralling and the long festive break is the favourite time for crooked workers to undertake their often time-consuming crimes and cover their tracks.

Independent

03 Jan

A not very happy new year for freedom and the rule of law

"I am pessimistic about the legal scene of 2006. Top of my fears is a continuation of the government's intemperate assault on basic civil liberties, all in the cause of the "war against terrorism". This will inevitably be accompanied by stout resistance from our judges, followed closely by a thuggish and abusive reaction from whoever is home secretary at the time." Marcel Berlins

Guardian

02 Jan

Shaken to the foundations

Scottish lawyers are bracing themselves for fundamental changes to the structure of their profession, their markets and even perhaps to their own firms in 2006.

The Herald

02 Jan

DRUG BUSTERS TARGET LAWYERS & MONEYMEN

ELITE drug-busting agents are to target the lawyers and accountants laundering dirty money for Scotland's Mr Bigs. A special unit will be launched to hunt down white-collar criminals behind the drug trade. Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency boss Graeme Pearson yesterday vowed there would be no hiding place for professionals who supported organised crime.

Tha Daily Record See also:

Sunday Herald

02 Jan

Legal blogger quits

AN ASSISTANT US attorney in Newark who penned an anonymous spicy blog about what judges and lawyers get up to has quit his job. David Lat, who penned "Underneath Their Robes" sent an e-mail Friday to fellow staff at the US attorney's office, telling them that it was his last day.

The Inquirer

02 Jan

Revenue launches probe into soaring tax credit fraud

Fears are mounting that the tax credit system is being overwhelmed by fraud from tens of thousands of people falsely claiming to be sick or disabled.

Telegraph

01 Jan

Nabbed! Investigators turn tables on criminals by seizing £100m

Once they provided a tidy little nest egg on exit from jail. Now the villains' hoards are up for grabs by the authorities.

Independent

01 Jan