File: Colleague refused request to hide matter
A newly qualified solicitor who asked a colleague to hide a client file so as to cover up her lack of work on an HM Land Registry (HMLR) application, has been struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) heard that Demi Christine Perrin also lied to her boss about both.
Ms Perrin, 31, qualified into the family department at Blackhurst Budd in Blackpool in June 2022.
According to a statement of agreed facts and outcome approved by the SDT, routine file audits just two months after she qualified revealed issues “with regards to work done, a lack of case progression and billing”.
When she was questioned by the firm’s managing director, Warren Spencer, about billing delays in late 2022, Ms Perrin said she had “forgotten” a couple of times to send bills but that it would not happen again.
She was admitted to hospital over the Christmas break and was off work for two weeks. When the office reopened in the New Year, the head of the family department was told by a colleague from the conveyancing team that Ms Perrin had contacted her and asked her to “hide a file”.
It concerned a first registration application that the conveyancer had been helping her with.
The conveyancer refused and it emerged that Ms Perrin had not lodged the application, despite having had the file since mid-2022.
When Ms Perrin returned to work, she was summoned to a meeting with Mr Spencer and the head of HR, during which she claimed the application had been sent. She denied asking her colleague to hide the file.
At a second meeting a fortnight later, after the firm had confirmed with HMLR that it had not received anything, Ms Perrin said she had sent the application in November but did so without leaving a digital footprint.
But after Mr Spencer said he would check with both HMLR and the firm’s IT department, to find out when the file had been accessed, she admitted not sending the application, but maintained that she had not asked her colleague to lie.
Ms Perrin was then off ill for three months and suspended on her return. A week later, she admitted asking her colleague to lie, saying that “in retrospect I was not mentally or physically ready to return to the office following my hospitalisation” and that she “made a serious error of judgment under extreme circumstances”.
The following month, she was dismissed for gross misconduct.
Ms Perrin admitted her actions before the SDT, including that she had been dishonest. She said she suffered from “several significant medical conditions” and was hospitalised again earlier this year.
She added that she had repeatedly offered to remove herself from the roll.
The SDT approved the agreement between the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Ms Perrin that she be struck off. It made no order for costs given her means.
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