Co Down solicitor who stole from the estate of a dead woman to keep his law firm afloat is spared jail due to ill health

Judge Gordon Kerr KC said while Paul Downey’s year long fraud deserved a prison sentence as it represented a “gross breach of professional trust” and potentially undermined public trust in lawyers, he said there was medical evidence the 66-year-old was suffering from advanced stage leukaemia.

He said it was clear that Downey, who appeared at Newry Crown Court by videolink from a hospital ward, had an “extremely poor” prognosis, did not personally benefit from his fraud and has medical needs which could not be facilitated in prison.

“As a result of that I consider it is appropriate for the court to exercise a degree of mercy,” said Judge Kerr as he imposed a 27 month sentence which he suspended for three years.

Last January Downey, from Mount Royal in Banbridge, entered guilty pleas to fraud by abuse of position and false accounting on dates between 26 July 2013 and 8 June 2014.

On the first count Downey admitted abusing his position of trust in order to defraud the executors of the will of Catherine Hayes by writing two cheques to himself totalling £28,000 and to steal credit in the sum of £73,844.

In relation to count three, the former solicitor entered a guilty plea to false accounting in that he “destroyed, defaced, concealed or falsified a certain account record or document, namely cheque stub 000198, by stating that the Payee was John Hayes when that was not the case.”

Following the admissions, 12 other charges of fraud, theft and false accounting were “left on the books” and as well as the suspended jail sentence, confiscation proceedings have been adjourned to September.

Summarising the case during his sentencing remarks today Judge Kerr described how the defendant was the “principal partner” in firm of Paul L Downey in Banbridge but that a routine compliance audit by the Law Society in June 2014 “found that clients’ money had been mishandled” with funds being “improperly withdrawn and used to fund the running of the practice.”

That then sparked a full investigation by a chartered accountant which “highlighted a number of improper postings designed to cover to what had been going on.”

The main client from which money had been taken was from the estate of Ms Hayes who, knowing she was dying with cancer, had used Downey’s firm to make a will.

Judge Kerr said there was evidence that Ms Hayes “was upset at making the will because she knew she was going to die” and in it, she had made special provisions for a relative who suffered Downs Syndrome.Investigations by the accountant and a local law firm who took over the running of Downey’s firm, discovered that no funds were ever received and while two checks stubs amounting to £28,000 were written out to her brother John Hayes, he never received any money either.

Instead, Downey had falsified the stubs and written the cheques out to himself.

Sadly, Mr Hayes has since passed on too.Interviewed about the fraud, Downey admitted using the funds to “keep the practice afloat” and claimed that he intended to pay it back “once cash flow had improved.”

Judge Kerr said it was no surprise that Downey had a clear criminal record and a good work record but when it came to a “gross breach of professional standards,” personal mitigation held little weight.“In my view one of the most important factors is the potential for public loss of trust for solicitors, acting in a professional capacity and something at the the heart of the system is justice, into disrepute, potentially, in relation to public trust,” said the judge adding that “clearly, the custodial threshold has been met.”

Judge Kerr said however that Downey’s extreme poor health is “the nub of the case” because while prison authorities can often provide and facilitate medical treatment for a prisoner, Downey’s condition “has reached a stage where he is requiring more and more time in hospital and constantly requires more treatment for his condition.”

It was for that reason, said the judge, that he was taking the exceptional step of suspending the prison sentence.

While he warned the fraudster if he reoffended he would have to serve the sentence, the judge concluded “I do not foresee that being a realistic possibility.”