Fraudster solicitor jailed after stealing nearly £1.2million from clients to pay tax bills

Fraudster solicitor jailed after stealing nearly £1.2million from clients to settle his own tax bills.

Andrew Cooper, a 43-year-old former partner at London firm Streathers Solicitors, was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing the funds.

Cooper, who specialised in probate work, admitted three counts of fraud by abuse of position at Southwark Crown Court.

Over a three-year period ending in June 2022, he siphoned funds from the firm's client account through more than 80 unauthorised transactions.

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The precise sum extracted was £1,174,493.62, according to proceedings before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Cooper had maintained an unblemished professional record before the fraud was discovered.

His scheme began to unravel when he contacted HMRC requesting that a client's address be changed to his own.

The client subsequently discovered the alteration after failing the tax authority's security checks.

When challenged, Cooper denied sending the letter, but managers at Streathers retrieved it from the firm's internal systems and reported him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

He was also found to have placed an electronic signature on correspondence to HMRC on a client's behalf without their knowledge or consent.

Upon being confronted by his fellow partners with proof of the fraud, Cooper reportedly said: "I am absolutely f***ed."

The firm dismissed him in 2022.

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The SRA's investigation revealed the full extent of Cooper's offending, uncovering the pattern of more than 80 illicit payments drawn from client funds between 2019 and 2022.

The disciplinary tribunal, which heard his case last November, concluded that all charges against him were proven.

In its ruling, the tribunal determined that Cooper had been "aware of the extent of the harm" caused to his client, who had been attempting to resolve a probate matter with HMRC.

His conduct was deemed "aggravated in that it was deliberate, calculated and repeated and took place over a period of three years".

Cooper neither attended the disciplinary hearing nor instructed legal representation, offering no mitigation.

He was struck off the solicitors' roll in January last year.

At the crown court, Cooper's barrister Amy Packham argued that her client had been "under considerable professional pressure and stress" during the period of his offending.

She maintained it was "never his intention to cause a loss to his employers with whom he worked for 17 years", according to Legal Futures.

Judge Martin Griffith acknowledged it was "sad to see someone 17 years in their profession, rising to being an equity partner, and succumbing to three counts of fraud".

Addressing Cooper directly, the judge said: "All you had to do was ask for help, rather than ruin your life."

He noted that Cooper had both misused client money for personal purposes and moved funds between unrelated clients, describing the offence as "such a breach of trust by clients, partners, and by the public in general".

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