Corrupt solicitor who swindled nearly £4m from his clients to fund his jet set lifestyle is jailed for more than four years
- Christopher Bilmes, 45, defrauded £1,767,322 between 2014 and 2017
- The SRA also received claims from 52 of his clients with a value of £3.9million
A corrupt solicitor who swindled millions of pounds to fund his jet-set lifestyle has been jailed for four years and eight months.
Christopher Bilmes, 45, who was the sole partner and founder of Bilmes Law LLP, used client cash to fly himself around the world and and bankroll his other failing business, Hove Crown Court heard.
Bilmes was given a 56-month jail term for one offence and a year for the six other offences of fraud he committed between November 2014 and October 2017 when he appropriated £1,767,322 from the client account of his law firm.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority Compensation Fund also received claims from 52 of Bilmes’s clients with a total value of £3.9million.
Sentencing Bilmes, Recorder David Brock said: ‘In my opinion the offending is so serious an immediate term of imprisonment is appropriate.’
Christopher Bilmes (pictured, left), 45, who was the sole partner and founder of Bilmes Law LLP, used client money to fly himself around the world and and bankroll his other failing business, Hove Crown Court heard
Bilmes was given a 56-month jail term for one offence and a year for the six other offences of fraud he committed between November 2014 and October 2017 when he appropriated £1,767,322 from the client account of his law firm
Initially based in Fleet Street, London, Bilmes moved his firm to a converted barn in Groombridge, Kent, without telling his clients.
An unpaid mortgage following a house sale led two of the firm’s employees to report Bilmes to the SRA when only around £150,000 of the £380,000 needed to pay the bank was in the client account – despite the house sale completing weeks earlier.
The fraud then came to light in October 2017 when the firm stopped trading and the SRA intervened.
When staff found there were huge gaps in paperwork for the firm, Bilmes told them: ‘It’s all Greek to me.’
Victim Hanneke Koekkoek was left owing £80,000 after Bilmes said he could arrange a loan of £45,000 to cover his legal fees when she spit from her partner in 2014.
Reading from Hanneke Koekkoek’s witness statement, prosecutor Daniel O’Donoghue said: ‘You should feel nothing but shame for what you have done.
‘You sent me to the brink. This is what your greed did. I’ve had nearly a decade of despair, grief and anxiety.
‘I’ve had to fight huge battles created by your dishonesty. I took it for granted I could put my trust in you. You were just a thief masquerading as someone who cared for your clients.’
A confiscation hearing will be held later this year.
Source: Read Full Article
