ALBERT LEADBEATER’S lungs were ruined by coal dust. The Yorkshire miner died in 1988, aged 65. Fifteen years later his widow, Gladys, received compensation from British Coal for the chronic respiratory disease that killed him. Although she was awarded damages of £51,616, she received only £42,625 because her solicitors deducted 15 per cent as a “success fee”.

Mrs Leadbeater, 81, later learnt that the lawyers, Manchester-based Lopian Wagner, should not have taken a penny from her because the costs of successful claims were being paid by the Government. Lopian Wagner had already received £2,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry.

In November 2003 Mrs Leadbeater’s daughter, Valerie Betton, raised the issue with her MP and in January 2004, under intense pressure, Lopian Wagner repaid the £9,000. But Mrs Betton and her brother, Garry Leadbeater, were outraged by the solicitors’ conduct. They went to Towells, a solicitors’ firm with expertise in miners’ claims, which submitted, pro bono, a series of complaints to the Law Society on their behalf. More than two years later they are still awaiting the outcome of disciplinary proceedings. Although the Law Society’s adjudication panel ruled last October that Lopian Wagner had provided an inadequate professional service to Mrs Leadbeater and ordered the firm to pay her £1,800 compensation, an appeal was lodged against the decision.

No date has been set for the appeal and no date has been set for a proposed hearing by the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal. No one for Lopian Wagner was available to comment on the case.

This case was not covered in the ombudsman’s report.

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