Lawyer claims £900,000 was 'gift'

A solicitor accused of fraud has told a court he was "staggered" when a man left disabled in a crash gave him half of the £1.8m he was awarded in damages. Thomas McGoldrick, 59, said he thought "Why not?" and took the cash, Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester heard.

The solicitor is alleged to have forged a letter from client Keith Anderson, of Croydon, London, purporting to award him £900,000. Mr McGoldrick, of Mobberley, Cheshire, denies the charges.

Mr Anderson, a father-of-three, was left paralysed from the chest down and quadriplegic, after the road accident in Croydon in November 1996.

The defendant's Altrincham and Croydon-based law firm, McGoldricks, handled the claim, winning the award in May 2001. But after winning the damages Mr McGoldrick used the money to pay off debts his firm had incurred which was costing £65,000 in repayments each month, the jury was told.

Mr Anderson earlier told the court he had never agreed to give his money away to his solicitor. On Wednesday, Mr McGoldrick denied forging the letter and said his client had agreed to give him the money at a meeting at his house in September 2002.

"He didn't think the figure was very great," Mr McGoldrick told the court. "He said, 'I think you should have more'. "He then started to talk about 50%. I was staggered, but he kept on, he persisted he wanted to give me the sum, 50% of that award. It was just not necessary but he insisted and persisted. I thought to myself, 'Why not? Why not do that?' I had never been put in this position before. I don't think I had ever had a bottle of wine from a client."

He then drafted the letter for Mr Anderson purporting to give him half of the £1.8 million, the jury heard. Mr McGoldrick faces 53 counts of false accounting, two counts of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception, one count of forgery and one count of money laundering between December 1999 and September 2004.

The trial was adjourned until Thursday.