A former accountant who did not tell his new law firm employer he had a fraud conviction has been barred from working in the profession.
According to a Solicitors Regulation Authority notice, Gareth Booth secured a job as head of finance with London firm Stephenson Law Ltd after giving false details on a recruitment agency application form.
Booth was asked if he had any unspent criminal convictions or had ever been disqualified by a professional body. He answered no to both and started working at the firm in June 2022.
In fact, he had been convicted in 2020 of defrauding his previous employer of £587,000 over the course of almost two years, when he worked as group operations director. He was sentenced to three years and three months in prison and was released on licence after serving half.
While he was in prison Booth, who is from Northern Ireland, was also excluded as a member from professional body Chartered Accountants Ireland.
He was dismissed by Stephenson Law after two months for gross misconduct when the conviction came to light.
The SRA said Booth had misled both the recruitment agency and the firm and that his conduct was deliberate, dishonest and posed a wider risk to the reputation of the firm and the wider profession.
He was disqualified from being employed by any regulated firm under section 99 of the Legal Services Act. He was also ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £1,350.
Stephenson Law was liquidated in October after HM Revenue & Customs called in debts of around £820,000.
