貪小失大

Suspended prison sentence for cash-strapped NQ solicitor who altered parking permit with a felt tip pen

His legal career now hangs in the balance

A 26-year-old newly qualified (NQ) solicitor has been handed a suspended prison sentence for changing the date on a parking permit with a felt tip pen.

Steven Barker appeared before Portsmouth Crown Court yesterday facing four counts of obtaining services by deception, fraud, and making an article for use in fraud.

The court heard how Barker had used a felt tip pen to — somewhat crudely — add an extra year onto his parking permit, changing the five in ‘13 July 2015’ to a six.

According to the Mail Online, Barker would leave his vehicle in a carpark in Southsea and travel — via hovercraft — to a firm based on the Isle of Wight, where he was completing his training contract.

The young solicitor — who has since lost his job as an in-house lawyer at insurance outfit Ageas — was caught using the doctored permit (pictured below) on four occasions between October and November last year.

Via Portsmouth City Council

Though Barker admitted the four counts back in September, his counsel, William Mousley QC of London’s 2KBW, claimed he had been suffering from poor health and financial difficulties at the time of the offences. Continuing, he said:

He is ashamed. This was either a gross error of judgement or an act of complete stupidity and he now has a high price to pay and this will remain with him for a significant period.

Sentencing Barker to six months in prison, suspended for two years, Judge Ian Pearson said:

Effectively you are ruined as far as being a solicitor is concerned. It’s highly unlikely you will retain that position. The public expect a higher standard of honesty and integrity from members of the profession and this matter means that you plainly fail to achieve the high standard expected.

Barker — who only qualified in February and is currently unemployed — was also slapped with 150 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £986 prosecution costs.

(Legal Cheek 27/10/2016)

真的很不明白, 這律師是怎樣訓練出來的, 塗改泊車證, 甘冒犯法的風險, 貪圖小便宜, 帶來嚴重後果, 得益與後果不相稱, 真的是愚蠢型犯法。上一篇那女生想做律師, 條長路遠, 這個新牌仔卻活得不耐煩, 以後還可以執業嗎? 我粗略看了英國的Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, 類似香港法例第297章《罪犯自新條例》, 不過定得較香港寬大, 這律師判緩刑6個月, 因為不超過6個月, 3年後可以洗底, 如果發生在香港, 判監超過3個月就無得洗底, 案底伴隨一世了。那麼不用即時入獄的緩刑又算不算判監呢? 英國我就不清楚, 以香港而言, 答案在法例第221章《刑事訴訟程序條例》第109B(5)(a)就可找到, 自己去睇。

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