A solicitor who drove while nearly three times over the legal alcohol limit did not deliberately mislead her firm about the extent of her convictions, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has found.
Ruling in a prosecution brought by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the SRA concluded that Elizabeth Thomson, formerly a partner with Kent firm Boyes and Maughan, had genuinely believed she told the full story when she discussed her offences.
Thomson was convicted after an incident in 2022 when her erratic driving caused an oncoming vehicle to leave the road and enter a hedge. Thomson’s Jaguar XS then collided with another vehicle but she again failed to stop, and police had to get in front of her vehicle to finally bring her journey to an end.
She was convicted of driving after consuming excess alcohol and pleaded guilty to a separate charge of driving without due care and attention and was sentenced to 12 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for a year, and 80 hours of unpaid work. Her certificate of conviction did not record a separate penalty, instead noting that the ‘bad driving’ of Thomson as an aggravating factor when considering sentencing.
As well as the charges relating to her convictions, the SRA alleged that Thomson had failed to fully disclose her conviction to her firm and misled the regulator about the true position of the firm.
The SRA submitted that Thomson had told the firm only that she had been convicted of a drink-driving offence. The self-reporting email she sent to the regulator and her firm did not mention any additional offences or the suspended custodial sentence.
The firm’s compliance officer Andrew Baker said Thomson mentioned a ‘minor collision’ and expressed remorse: the partners had agreed she could continue working for the firm as the matter would likely be dealt with by a fine from the SRA.
When the SRA said the matter was being referred to the tribunal, Baker questioned whether he knew the full extent of the circumstances. The SRA alleged that the firm asked six times for information, but Thomson told the tribunal she had been on sick leave during this period and the requests were sent to the wrong personal email address.
Thomson denied failing to disclose her conviction and sentence in full to the firm. She had told Baker she had been convicted of drink driving offences. She explained that her solicitor and barrister had described the offences of which she was convicted as ‘drink driving offences’, and she had merely used the same term as her legal representatives.
She described the firm as a ‘toxic workplace’ and said its main concern was the possible effect of the SDT proceedings on its reputation.
The tribunal found no evidence to suggest that Thomson had sought to hide or mislead the firm. On the contrary, it was considered she had made immediate disclosure and self-reported both to Baker and the SRA.
‘Knowing that the criminal conviction documents would be publicly available, there could not have been any motivation for the respondent to seek to hide the extent of her convictions and sentences and mislead the firm or the [SRA] in any way,' said the ruling. ‘The tribunal was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that [Thomson] had genuinely believed that she had given disclosure to the required extent and she had, from the outset, expressed a willingness to cooperate fully with the firm and the [SRA].’
The tribunal said Thomson was a highly experienced solicitor who should have known better than to drink and drive, but she had shown deep remorse, apologised fully and accepted full responsibility. She was fined £17,500 and ordered to pay £2,500 costs.
