The SRA has made questionable use of its time and rebuked a 65-year-old solicitor for breaking confidentiality rules in 1978 to catch a murderer.

As a 22-year-old criminal lawyer, Steve Chittenden represented 16-year-old Roy Brookes during his trial for the brutal slaying of Lynn Siddons, who was stabbed to death by a canal in Barrow-on-Trent in 1978. Over the course of several conversations with his client during the trial, Chittenden realised that the teenager's step-father, Michael Brookes, was the real killer. 

Chittenden was bound by client confidentiality not to reveal the information provided by Roy Brookes, who was acquitted. But after the case he handed over his records to Siddons' family without Roy Brookes' knowledge or consent. They revealed that Michael Brookes had bullied Roy Brookes and forced him into taking part in the killing, which the elder man carried out. Chittenden said, "Among the information I handed over was evidence the boy told me and a psychiatrist of how he was scared of his stepfather, who would cut out pictures of women from the magazines and stab them with a knife".

The evidence led to the conviction of Michael Brookes 18 years after the killing, but also to civil proceedings against Roy Brookes. However Chittenden's role was kept secret until he decided to unburden himself by confessing to his local paper when he retired in January 2016. Chittenden told the Derby Telegraph, "It has taken more than 30 years but I feel I have finally got it off my chest. It feels cathartic". He said, "A complaint to the Law Society could have been made by any interested party if they had known what had happened".

(L-R) Michael Brookes, Chittenden, the SRA.

One reader decided that is exactly what needed to happen and referred Chittenden to the SRA. Chittenden admitted he had committed "extremely serious breaches" of his duty of confidentiality to his client, which, said the SRA, "constituted conduct that is completely unacceptable on the part of a solicitor". It said that if he was still practising he would probably be struck off. In mitigation Chittenden was able to offer something considerably stronger than the usual excuses about being 'under a lot of pressure', and submitted instead that he was motivated "not for personal gain but in the greater interests of justice" and had caught a murderer. However, he accepted a public rebuke and that he must never practise as a solicitor again. 

Speaking afterwards to the Derby Telegraph, Chittenden said the SRA was "absolutely right". He said, "I am sure there will be people who will read this and say to themselves 'the law is the law and he needs to be punished for breaching that confidentiality'. I agree with them, I do". But, he said, "I had the knowledge and the chance to stop it happening to some other poor girl. What I did was not professional and could have lost me my career, but I'm proud of doing what I did".