How The Times broke the story

Two solicitors whose firm was paid £136 million by the Government for handling compensation claims by sick miners were struck off yesterday after a disciplinary tribunal found them guilty of dishonesty.

Jim Beresford and Doug Smith, whose misconduct was first exposed by The Times, were found to have acted with “conscious impropriety” in their dealings with a mining union that handed their law firm, Beresfords, thousands of industrial disease compensation claims.

Mr Beresford, 58, has banked more than £30 million from his firm’s work on the claims and was named last year as Britain’s highest-earning solicitor. Between 2004 and 2006, he grew richer at a rate of £37,000 per day.

The money bought him a £1.8 million private jet, Aston Martins, a Ferrari and extensive improvements to his home near Wetherby, West Yorkshire.

He and Mr Smith, 51, agreed to a “dubious” secret deal in 2002 under which they paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to a company owned by an employee of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM). The two men were found guilty of nine charges of misconduct involving numerous breaches of the Solicitors’ Practice Rules. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that they entered into a sham arrangement with the UDM, failed to act in the best interests of their clients, failed to give adequate advice and improperly released confidential information.

In thousands of cases they sliced money from damages to claimants. Some deductions were kept as a success fee; others went to the UDM.

Beresfords’ financial relationship with the union was revealed by The Times in 2005 and is linked to a criminal inquiry that the Serious Fraud Office has been pursuing for the past three years.

Yesterday’s ruling followed a six-day hearing during which the two men denied exploiting sick and elderly miners and insisted that earning substantial fees was no crime. David Leverton, the tribunal chairman, said that evidence given by Mr Beresford and Mr Smith was “not always believable”.

They were dealing with former miners whose understanding of legal matters was “extremely limited”. He said: “If ever there was a group of people who needed the full care and attention of their solicitor, it was these men.” Mr Beresford, he said, had described himself as an entrepreneur. His attitude had led him to place “his firm’s commercial goals before his clients’ best interests”. This was conduct unbecoming a solicitor.

“Cases such as this reflect upon the whole profession and its standing in the eyes of the public. Any solicitor who is shown to have discharged his professional duties with anything less than complete integrity and probity must expect severe sanctions.”

The Solicitors Regulation Authority, which brought the charges against the two, welcomed the tribunal’s decision to strike them off the solicitors’ roll with immediate effect.

John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, in Nottinghamshire, waged a campaign to force Beresfords and other firms to pay back money deducted from damages awarded to his constituents. “The country has never seen greed from its professional classes on the extraordinary scale that we witnessed from the solicitors who rushed to sink their noses into the coal-health feeding trough,” he said. “This is going to send shockwaves throughout the legal industry.”

The money came from the Government’s coal-health compensation scheme, set up nine years ago to compensate thousands of miners suffering from vibration white finger and chronic lung disease caused by coal dust.

Road to disgrace

June 2005 The Times publishes first story showing close financial relationship between individuals at the UDM and solicitors’ firms, including Beresfords, handling union’s coal health claims. Police start criminal inquiry

July Law Society says 30 law firms are under investigation. Government orders independent inquiry into its running of scheme. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) takes charge of criminal investigation

November SFO orders raids on UDM headquarters and homes of its two senior officials. Home of union employee has already been raided

December Independent inquiry criticises law firms that deducted money from clients’ damages and urges repayment

April 2006 Law Society says 45 solicitors from 10 firms will appear at disciplinary tribunal

April 2007 National Audit Office identifies “significant weaknesses” in the Government’s handling of the coal health scheme

June 2008 The Times reports Jim Beresford’s personal profit from his firm’s earnings over past five years is £30.2 million

December Mr Beresford and his partner, Doug Smith, are struck off for dishonesty and conduct unbecoming a solicitor

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• BGC 'set aside £40m to lure Tullett brokers'
• Legal aid review to ensure value
• Fears as 21 magistrates' courts face closure