Solicitor guilty of £1.2m fraud

A solicitor who conned more than £1m from a disabled client has been found guilty of fraud. Thomas McGoldrick, 59, of Faulkners Lane, Mobberley, Cheshire, had denied the charges at Manchester Crown Court.

The court heard he lived a life of "extravagance" while taking the money from client Keith Anderson.

Mr Anderson, 45, of Croydon, had been awarded £1.8m following a crash which left him paralysed but McGoldrick claimed he had "gifted" him the money. Mr Anderson was paid damages after the accident in Croydon in November 1996, which left him paralysed from the chest down.

The solicitor, who had practices called McGoldricks in Altrincham, Greater Manchester and Croydon, went on to take about £1.2m of the cash. When Mr Anderson was awarded the damages in May 2001, McGoldrick drew up a forged letter allegedly from his client "gifting" him half the money.

McGoldrick then used the money to fund his struggling business, send his children to private school, take foreign holidays, drive luxury cars and live in a large house in Cheshire. During his trial, the court heard how he spent £3,500 joining Mere Golf and Country Club in Cheshire, £1,600 on a climbing frame for his children in the garden of his house, and £15,000 on his kitchen. The court heard how McGoldrick also created false accounts for his firm, "grossly exaggerating" his profits to get money on 13 credit cards and 33 loans.

Mr Anderson, who was persuaded by McGoldrick not to invest his payout but to leave it in his practice's client account, told the court he would have been "crazy" to give half his money away. The court heard that Mr Anderson called the firm in 2004 to be told by another solicitor that his cash had gone. Mr. Anderson said: "I was shocked because I knew I should have in excess of £1m in the account. I did not know what to do."

McGoldrick was convicted of 53 counts of false accounting, two counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, one count of forgery and three counts of money laundering between December 1999 and September 2004. He is due to be sentenced on 7 April.

Judge Roger Thomas QC, said, "It is inevitable there is going to be passed on him a significant custodial sentence. The case involves first of all him defrauding financial institutions and then the very unfortunate Mr Anderson, out of considerable sums of money over a considerable period of time. You have been convicted on quite frankly, overwhelming evidence."