Solicitor jailed after pocketing £160k from client payments

A property solicitor has been jailed after stealing £160,000 in mortgage deposits and sanctioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)

Fiona Parsons, 54, from Newquay, Cornwall, has been jailed for 30 months in total after being found guilty of siphoning off over £160,000 from more than 300 clients while acting as their solicitor.

The now former solicitor was employed by Lambe Corner Solicitors in Herefordshire, which is still trading and has been ‘trusted for over 150 years’ according to its website. However, Parsons deposited the money from clients into her own accounts before it reached the businesses accounts and was stealing from the firm as well as its clients.

Hereford CID and West Mercia’s economic crime unit (ECU) worked together to unravel Parson’s string of fraudulent activity, tracing it back to September 2020 when two home buyers’ £400 payments for property searches were not paid. Two years later the purchasers were chased for the money, being told they had not paid the sums.

Police found this was a common theme in Parson’s fraud leading up to her arrest in March 2023.

The solicitor’s regulator disciplined Parsons, banning her from working as a solicitor unless first approved by the SRA, and preventing her from ever becoming a partner, manager or sole practitioner.

Additionally, Parsons is not allowed to hold or receive any client’s money, cannot work in any compliance positions, and cannot act as a signatory on client or office accounts.

Parsons must also be ‘chaperoned for all client meetings’, and ‘must have all correspondence relating to client accounts supervised including correspondence relating to fees’, said the SRA.

Detective constable Cathryn Blake of Hereford CID said: ‘We are pleased to get this custodial sentence at court for Parsons whose fraudulent activities cost a law firm just over £160,000 over a three-year period.

‘Her actions not only put customers out of pocket but the business too and it was not only an abuse of her position as a solicitor but also an abuse of trust.

‘We would like to thank the firm for their cooperation and all the clients who have been spoken to, whether that was by myself or the firm for their help during this investigation.’

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