Solicitor who misled police and took money from ‘vulnerable’ old man struck off

A Liverpool solicitor who continued practising while bankrupt and who misled police into believing he worked for a firm when representing clients has been struck off.

However, Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal dismissed an allegation that 48-year-old Alan Richard Birkbeck borrowed £8,250 from a “vulnerable” elderly man he represented without advising him to take separate legal advice. But it also found he breached rules of conduct in failing to pay the money back.

Birkbeck was also found to have failed to co-operate with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

He had been working as a part-time consultant at Healey Kenyon McAteer in Liverpool carrying out police work and court attendances.

Birkbeck was suspended in June 2015, when he revealed that he had been declared bankrupt in January of that year, shortly before he started his employment.

The SRA also became involved as a result of information on the insolvency registers.

Solicitors are obliged to inform the regulator within seven days of being made subject to bankruptcy proceedings.

Birkbeck had been bankrupt previously, in 2004, before his certificate was reinstated in 2011. As a result, it was satisfied he would have been aware bankrupts were automatically barred from practising, and rejected his claim that he was unaware of an obligation to notify the SRA.

The tribunal said his actions showed a lack of integrity among other breaches of the rules.

Mr Birkbeck met the elderly man, Mr A, when he represented him at a police station in April 2015.

The following month, he asked Mr A for a loan and eventually borrowed £8,250, signing an IOU that promised to pay the money back within 12 weeks.

But there was nothing in Mr A’s statement to the tribunal that confirmed Mr Birkbeck had not advised him to obtain independent legal advice, and so the tribunal could not find the solicitor had acted with a lack of integrity.

The tribunal found that not repaying the money was a failure to maintain public trust.

It also held the Mr Birkbeck had breached conduct rules in not co-operating with the SRA, which said that it was still not known at the time of the hearing whether Mr A’s loan had been repaid.

His conduct had been “deliberate, repeated and continued over a period of time”. He had acted dishonestly and taken advantage of Mr A, who was “a vulnerable elderly person, of limited means, and who had suffered identifiable harm.”

Birkbeck had shown no genuine insight or remorse.

It concluded: “The tribunal was satisfied that there were no exceptional circumstances in this case. The appropriate sanction to reflect the seriousness of the misconduct, ensure the protection of the public and the protection of the reputation of the legal profession was to strike the respondent off.”

Mr Birkbeck was ordered to pay costs of £3,453.