A Highland solicitor has admitted withholding expenses paid to him by Scotland’s legal aid authority.
Michael Chapman, of Inverness-based Chapman and Co, held onto the cash for three years before handing it over to the two witnesses it had been awarded it to.
The incident happened when Mr Chapman represented ex-Labour city councillor John Holden at a benefits fraud trial in 2011 that ended with his client being jailed.
But Mr Chapman yesterday admitted professional misconduct in his treatment of witnesses at the trial.
He faced a disciplinary tribunal where he accepted he had failed to pay the expenses for witnesses.
However, he dodged being struck off by the Law Society of Scotland – but has had a restriction to work as a solicitor placed on him for two-and-a-half years.
The Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline tribunal heard Chapman had claimed expenses on behalf of two witnesses, totalling around £1,000, to appear at the trial of Mr Holden.
Despite receiving the cash from the Scottish Legal Aid Board, he failed to hand it over to the two witnesses – Richard Potter and Mr Holden’s brother, Eammon – for three years.
The pair finally received their expenses in 2014, but attended the tribunal in an unsuccessful bid to get thousands of pounds of compensation from Mr Chapman.
Mr Potter, who lives in Sweden, claimed the experience had been extremely stressful for both him and his partner, initially suggesting he had spent the equivalent of 90 working days drafting correspondence with Mr Chapman in a bid to get his expenses, much of which was not replied to.
He later downgraded that estimate to 60 hours under questioning and was forced to settle for £850 in compensation – despite initially demanding £10,000, and having been offered £2,500 by Mr Chapman’s solicitor in a bid to avert the tribunal.
Eammon Holden also demanded compensation for his efforts to return the money and was awarded £820.
The tribunal heard that Mr Chapman failed to pay the expenses on time after getting into financial difficulties following the financial crash in 2008.
His solicitor said: “(In 2008) his wife, who is a solicitor but was not at that time working, decided to relocate to the Highlands.
“They concluded the purchase of a plot of land just outside Inverness and put their own house on the market in Dollar in August 2008.
“Unfortunately this coincided with the banking crisis of 2008 and like many people they were unable to sell their house. This caused a significant problem.”
The tribunal heard that the couple were forced to sell their house in Dollar at £120,000 less than expected, which led to Mr Chapman being unable to manage his affairs sufficiently enough and the failure to pay the expenses on time.
His solicitor added: “He simply didn’t deal with correspondence. He fully accepts that not to reply to letters from the Law Society is something which is, at the very least, foolish. He fully accepts that and was suffering from a depression and was not coping with matters.”