UnjustIS caches offline the full texts and originating urls of News content.
This page features news and news items relating to UnjustIS matters.
Follow the hyperlinks to the external source (opens in a new window) or an UnjustIS news sheet.
Most recently posted items top the list.
To report broken or outdated links please visit the Contacts section.
Solicitors and other lawyers making the bad news from 2003 to date: News Roundup
Essential developments and newly available information building news in the background. Essential
Use Ctrl+F to search this page - or use the Site Search facility to search all UnjustIS content.
News navigation
|
Title and description of item or excerpt. |
Links - the full story |
Date posted on UnjustIS |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ex-solicitor charged over theft A 70-year-old former solicitor has been charged with stealing over £100,000 from his law practice in Belfast. |
30 Sept |
|
|
Dr Michael Irwin struck off The doctor who tried to help a friend commit suicide has been struck off for abusing his position of trust. (I fervently hope and pray that, were I facing an imminent, agonising and lonely death in my sunset years, my best friend would show me the same compassion and respect as Dr Irwin did for his friend. UJ) |
27 Sept |
|
|
Prison for tax protest pensioner A retired social worker from Devon has become the first woman pensioner to be jailed in England for refusing to pay an increase in her council tax. |
26 Sept |
|
|
China tightens grip on web news China has tightened its censorship of online news services and bulletin boards, a move analysts say reflects its fear of a burgeoning civil society. |
26 Sept |
|
|
Deafening silence on complaints THE main Holyrood opposition parties are proving curiously equivocal on the controversial issue of how best to deal with complaints about Scotland's 10,000 lawyers. |
26 Sept |
|
|
Chairman jailed for 'milking football club dry' The youngest chairman in the football league has been jailed for four years after taking one of the country's oldest clubs to the brink of extinction within 12 months of assuming control. The apparent rags-to- riches story of Darren Brown reached its zenith when, at 29, he took over control at Chesterfield FC. |
22 Sept |
|
|
Small businesses ignore software licensing policies Forty-four percent of Britain's
small and medium sized businesses lack any form of software licensing
policy, exposing them to legal and security problems, according to a survey
by PC World Business. |
22 Sept |
|
|
Bail breaches spark fierce debate The number of people accused of offences breaching bail in two of Scotland's major police force areas has tripled in five years, figures show. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National Party's Holyrood leader, accused the first minister of putting the public at risk by failing to tackle the problem. |
22 Sept |
|
|
Swamped Hurricane Rita is on the way. But Katrina has already dashed hopes of reforming America's health-care system for the poor. AFTER sleeping on top of her fridge for three days to avoid the floods, Maude Jordan was eventually rescued from New Orleans... |
22 Sept |
|
|
80-year-old jailed after court outburst A WAR veteran who pursued an 11-year vendetta against his neighbour is behind bars today after launching into a furious tirade against magistrates. Angry 80-year-old Arthur Burgess has been warned he could be given an Asbo after being convicted of harassment, assaulting a police officer and criminal damage. |
22 Sept |
|
|
A ROYAL Mint manager wept with relief after being cleared of betraying his bosses. Hector Williamson was said to have struck a secret deal in commission payments. |
22 Sept |
|
|
Equitable drops High Court action Equitable Life has abandoned its massive High Court damages claim against accountants Ernst & Young. The mutual insurer had claimed Ernst & Young had signed off its accounts without warning of the problems that brought it close to collapse in 2000. |
22 Sept |
|
|
OFT launches 'scambusters' team The OFT today announced the launch of its new 'scambusters' team to target the most prevalent and harmful mass-marketing scams aimed at UK consumers. The team has been formed as part of the OFT's commitment to targeting scams as a priority area for the next three years. It is estimated that UK consumers lose up to £1 billion per year to a variety of scams which exploit low-cost, mass-marketing techniques to target recipients. |
22 Sept |
|
|
Review call for lawyer complaints NI Finance Minister Lord Rooker has announced he wants to review the way complaints against lawyers are handled. |
22 Sept |
|
|
£2bn seized in money scam raids Financial assets with a face value of £2bn have been seized in a series of raids across London and the South East. Bonds, cheques, bullion certificates and cash in different currencies were recovered in the operation to crack a money laundering network...The raids were part of Operation Sterling, launched earlier this year, to target professional fraudsters and career conmen. |
22 Sept |
|
|
Courts face crisis as barristers fight back over pay cuts THE criminal justice system faces widespread disruption next month when QCs join hundreds of barristers in refusing to appear in criminal trials. |
19 Sept |
|
|
What has happened to Iraq's missing $1bn? One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons. |
19 Sept |
|
|
LAWYER'S HOME SALE BANNED THE £250,000 home of a lawyer at the centre of a Legal Aid probe has been frozen. |
17 Sept |
|
|
The vanishing fraud sqauds (sic) FRAUD investigation has become a postcode lottery, an investigation by Financial Mail has revealed. |
17 Sept |
|
|
Barrister could pay for aborted rape trial A judge threw out a rape case today and warned the prosecution barrister that he may have to pay the costs of the abortive trial out of his own pocket. |
16 Sept |
|
|
Lawyer jailed for embezzling cash A solicitor who embezzled more than £100,000 from his Glasgow law firm has been jailed for two years. Calum Blyth, 34, admitted taking the money from the firm's account over two-and-a-half years in the late 1990s. Judge Lord McPhail told the High Court in Edinburgh that cases of embezzling by solicitors damaged public confidence in the legal profession. |
16 Sept |
|
|
Property developer faces bankruptcy after legal aid halted AN ARCHITECT and property developer is today likely to be declared bankrupt after a legal action for negligence he brought against his former solicitor was discontinued after £500,000 in legal aid had been spent on it. Peter Davis, 51, of Cardiff, had plans for a series of developments in the Welsh capital, London and France. But none of them went ahead after difficulties obtaining finance, and Mr Davis sued the solicitor who had acted for him..."Mr Davis said, "There is something very wrong with a system that can pay £500,000 to lawyers and then pull the plug on the case, having ignored expert advice they had paid for in the first place. How many other cases like this are there?"". |
16 Sept |
|
|
Tycoon fined for e-mail spying AN INTERNET pioneer who uncovered the e-mails that forced Dame Shirley Porter to pay £12.3 million to end the homes-for-votes scandal was fined yesterday for hacking into the messages. (This raises many issues including matters of what might be "In the public interest". UJ) |
16 Sept |
|
|
Demon founder escapes jail term "After the case Stanford's solicitor Helen McDowell said despite her client's decision to change his earlier not guilty plea and admit the interception charge, he still maintained his innocence. "Mr Stanford pleaded guilty to this offence following what we regard as an erroneous interpretation on a very complex new statute (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000). "The judge's ruling gave Mr Stanford no option other than to change his plea to one of guilty, and we will be vigorously pursuing an appeal with a view to establishing Mr Stanford's innocence," she added." |
BBC | 16 Sept |
|
Government set for Clementi ‘white paper’ The Government is gearing up to fast-track Sir David Clementi’s radical package of legal reforms into legislation as the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) prepares to publish its much-anticipated white paper next month. The document will, for the first time, unveil the detail of its stated commitment to implement the reform agenda put forward by Clementi in his report on legal services regulation in December. |
15 Sept |
|
|
James Sturman QC. First lawyer to get £1m plus in legal aid fees
· Clients include Primrose Shipman, wife of mass murderer Harold |
15 Sept |
|
|
Solicitor on £200k theft charges A FORMER solicitor with a North Wales family firm was last night facing charges of stealing almost £200,000 from his clients. |
15 Sept |
|
|
Prison for Dome chief over £4m fraud Lighting manager who took advantage of the chaos surrounding the project to buy cars, property and a helicopter is jailed for fraud. A SENIOR manager at the Millennium Dome who took advantage of the chaos at the troubled project to execute a £4 million fraud to fund a millionaire lifestyle was jailed for 4½ years yesterday. Simon Brophy bought a yacht, helicopter, sports car and even land and properties in the US after awarding his lighting company lucrative contracts at the Greenwich landmark. |
14 Sept |
|
|
Vote confirms desire to split Law Soc The UK's lawyers have voted through The Law Society's proposal to take the resposibilty (sic) for regulation away from the Law Society Council. |
13 Sept |
|
|
Series of fraud trial blunders sparks plans to cut legal aid Complex criminal fraud trials are running over-time and over-budget. In a letter to the Law Society, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer wrote: "The financial situation within the DCA [the Department for Constitutional Affairs] is such that I must take steps to reduce spending now. On present projections, the legal aid budget will overspend by some £130m this year and by similar amounts in subsequent years". |
13 Sept |
|
|
Endowments campaigner aims to put solicitors in line of fire A WOMAN from Renfrewshire is planning to mount a nationwide campaign for justice on behalf of hundreds of Scots allegedly missold mortgage endowments by solicitors. |
12 Sept |
|
|
Bar strike sees solicitor-advocates ready to step in Solicitor-advocates will have to take up the slack if the likely strike action by members of the criminal bar takes place this autumn. |
06 Sept |
|
|
'Evil' bogus spy jailed for life A former barman who posed as a
spy to trick his victims out of almost £1m has been jailed for life. |
06 Sept |
|
|
Relatives of victims to get say at trials Families of victims are to be given the option of speaking at murder and manslaughter trials under government plans announced today. Relatives will be able to speak, or have a statement read out on their behalf by a lawyer acting as a "victim's advocate", ahead of sentencing after a killer has been convicted. |
01 Sept |
|
|
Since June 2000 the Diligizer board has received over 18,037,913 Page Views
and over 109,800 posts. We get about 20,000 – 25,000 page views PER DAY
during the week and approx. 15,000 page views PER Day over the weekend.
Throughout this time I have been in contact with members and in the last 5
years have exchanged approx 14,500 emails. |
01 Sept |
|
|
Lawyers On Strike HUNDREDS of barristers in Yorkshire will refuse to take on criminal work from October in a row over pay cuts. The dramatic step will affect some of West Yorkshire's most serious cases, including those of child abuse, rape and robbery. |
31 Aug |
|
|
Solicitor abused client's child A solicitor has been
jailed for grooming the 10-year-old daughter of a client before abusing her.
|
30 Aug |
|
|
Shady lawyer left us in the cold J.W. writes: "I have a problem with the Law Society. I run a wholesale business selling beers, wines and spirits, and after a customer's cheque for £40,000 bounced, we cut off supplies. The customer said new finance was being raised and cash was imminent. We accepted an undertaking from the customer's solicitor that we would be paid in full, so supplies were reinstated. Well, the firm was refinanced, but we never received our cash as promised and we put the firm into liquidation".. Tony Hetherington replies: "LET'S name names. The company that owes you money is called Tockheath. When it went bust, you had received £16,500, leaving £23,500 due. And the solicitor who gave the dud promise to pay you is Barry Roberts. Writing on the notepaper of his firm, Roberts & Co of Sheffield, he said: 'As solicitors for and on behalf of Tockheath, we hereby undertake to discharge your outstanding account in the sum of £40,000 from the proceeds of the refinancing operation.' What could be clearer? Roberts was not writing on Tockheath notepaper, he did not sign himself as a director of Tockheath and he wrote as a solicitor, nothing else. But there is more to Roberts than meets the eye. Not long after he made his promise to you, his firm was shut down by the Law Society"... Read the full text, link on right:- Also by Tony Hetherington: Why Crooks are Laughing |
30 Aug |
|
|
Utter disregard for justice in the fast lane THAT most pernicious of closed shops - the lawyers' trades union - is alive and well and living at Stirling Sheriff Court, at least on the evidence of the case of Simon Hutchison and Sheriff Bob Brodie. |
28 Aug |