A veteran criminal defence solicitor who dishonestly passed money to his clients while they were in custody and tried to hide it from police officers has been struck off.

Derek Hayward, 70, gave cash to clients in consultation rooms at Medway police station in Kent on four occasions in the space of about five weeks in October and November 2019.

Kent Police complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority about the solicitor, a sole practitioner at Kent firm Derek J Hayward & Co, after he was spotted on CCTV – on one occasion giving a client a £20 note while apparently shaking his hand.

Hayward ‘lacked integrity in passing money to his clients and concealing his actions from the custody officers’, according to an outcome agreed between Hayward and the SRA, which was published today.

He was ‘an experienced criminal solicitor and was aware of the proper route of giving money to detainees and that it was wrong to give money directly to his clients whilst in custody', the decision states. ‘He was aware that his clients could not lawfully retain money as part of their possessions whilst in custody.’

Hayward, admitted in 1976, accepted that his conduct was dishonest and that he ‘knew his actions in giving money directly to clients in custody was wrong’, though he said the money he passed to his clients ‘would only have been to assist his clients getting home’.

He also denied that his actions were made to ‘curry favour’ with clients, telling the SRA that he had ‘a very loyal caseload of clients who he liked to think used him because of the services offered by him, his firm and counsel instructed and certainly not because of any inducements given’.

Hayward accepted that striking him off was both appropriate and proportionate and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal agreed, saying that ‘public confidence in the profession and the reputation of the profession required no lesser sanction than that Mr Hayward be removed from the roll’. He was also ordered to pay SRA costs of £3,419.