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A solicitor admitted to fellow partners in a meeting “I am absolutely fucked” and walked out of the building after they confronted him about unauthorised transfers of over £1m. He has now been struck off.

Andrew Cooper was a partner at Streathers Solicitors in London specialising in probate. Between August 2019 to June 2022, Cooper made over 80 unauthorised payments from the firm's client account which led to a cash shortage of approximately £1,174,493.

Among the dodgy payments were transfers to HMRC totalling around £77,000 which Cooper used to pay off his own tax invoice. Other irregular payments were made to clients and third parties, all without the consent of the clients whose money was being used.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Cooper had sent a letter to HMRC requesting that a client's address be changed to his own home address, and that he signed an electronic signature in that client's name confirming the change. When the client found out about the alteration, Cooper denied contacting HMRC and deleted his letter. 

Streathers looked into the matter at the time and located the deleted letter on Cooper's drive. In a meeting with the firm's compliance officers, the probate partner claimed he had changed the address so that he could deal with the matter more effectively. 

A couple of days later, the firm's compliance partners held another meeting with Cooper where they showed him ledgers highlighting various questionable payments. Cooper didn't comment on the transfers, but eventually stood up and declared “I am absolutely fucked”, and then left the building. The firm dismissed him in November 2022 and reported him to the SRA.

The SDT found that Cooper's motivation was financial gain, noting that the cash shortage caused "great harm" to the firm. The tribunal also stated that Cooper had been dishonest, abused his position as a partner, and that his misconduct was "deliberate, calculated and repeated" over a period of three years.

As well as being struck off, Cooper was ordered to pay nearly £30k in costs. 

Streathers senior partner James Danaher told RollOnFriday, "The protection of client money is fundamental to the profession, and we take matters of professional conduct extremely seriously. As soon as concerns came to light, we acted promptly and decisively to safeguard clients’ interests."  

"The firm cooperated fully with the SRA throughout its investigation, and we welcome the clarity brought by the SDT’s decision," Danaher added.