Fraudster who raided client’s bank account struck off

A solicitor convicted of fraud after taking money from a client’s bank account has been struck off.

Danielle De Carpentier, admitted as a solicitor in December 2017, made 39 cash withdrawals totalling £7,850 from a client’s bank account over a four-year period while acting under a Lasting Power of Attorney.

Appearing before Nottingham Crown Court in March 2022, De Carpentier was sentenced to 18 months in prison after she admitted fraud by abuse of position at an earlier date.

De Carpentier, who was a solicitor at Nottingham-based firm Clayton Mott, admitted that while acting under a Lasting Power of Attorney for Client A she abused her position by misappropriating £7,850 from Client A’s bank account between 1 August 2015 and 28 June 2019. She accepted her conduct was dishonest.

She had become a partner at the firm on 1 April 2018 and left in September 2020.

In an agreed outcome, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said: ‘A criminal conviction, particularly one involving a gross breach of trust and a vulnerable victim is extremely serious. The damage to the reputation of the profession is profound and irreparable.

‘The respondent’s misconduct could only be viewed as extremely serious, and this fact, together with the need to protect the reputation of the legal profession, required that strike off from the roll was the only appropriate sanction.’

In non-agreed mitigation, De Carpentier said she was ‘ashamed and profoundly sorry’.

She added: ‘I have let myself down as well as those people who put their faith in me and for that I can only offer my sincere apologies. I have tried to make amends having attempted to resign from the roll some years ago, I repaid the money in full and have served my sentence.'

No costs were sought by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and no order for costs was made.