Woman banned from legal profession after fraud conviction
A watchdog has banned a woman from working in the legal profession after she was found guilty of fraud.
Tracy Jayne Hulme worked for Horwich Cohen Coglan, on Liverpool Road, Manchester.
She was employed as a litigation executive between August 12, 2006 and June 29, 2017, but she was not a solicitor.
During her employment she misappropriated £64,548.99 belonging to the firm and its clients.
On February 27 this year she was convicted at Manchester and Salford Magistrates Court of the offence of Fraud by abuse of position under the Fraud Act 2006.
Her case was transferred to Manchester Crown Court for sentencing where, on March 27, she received a prison sentence of 16 months, suspended for 24 months.
Following sentencing, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has now announced that she is banned from working in the legal profession.
The order by the SRA, which covered a range of circumstances, is subject to an internal right of appeal and a right of review to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
However, announcing the order, the SRA said: “Ms Hulme is or was involved in a legal practice, but is not a solicitor and has been convicted of a criminal offence, which is such that in the opinion of the Society it would be undesirable for her to be involved in a legal practice in any of the ways described in the order above.”
A spokesperson for the law firm, said: “Having discovered Mrs Hulme’s conduct we immediately reported it to the police, the SRA and our insurers and took urgent steps to ensure that the two clients who were directly affected were fully reimbursed for their losses.
“On discovering Mrs Hulme’s misconduct, we undertook and completed an internal review, and introduced additional measures to make sure this won’t happen again. We cooperated fully with the Police and the SRA and support the action taken against Mrs Hulme.”
