Irwin Mitchell associate spared strike-off over deleted emails

A former Irwin Mitchell senior associate has avoided being struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) after deleting emails that linked her to changes made to a key client document.

What happened

Helen Roberts, who qualified as a solicitor in 2007, joined the wills, trusts and estates team at Irwin Mitchell in 2018.

The incident happened after a client, involved in a will dispute, complained that their particulars of claim had been amended without approval from their barrister.

When she was asked to provide a full chronology of the case by her supervising partner, Roberts deleted five email chains from the firm's case management system that revealed her involvement in the amendments, and attempted to shift blame onto a junior colleague involved in the matter who she was supervising.

Irwin Mitchell reported Roberts to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in February 2022.

SDT decision

Despite admitting to deleting the emails, Roberts denied dishonesty, claiming health issues including anxiety and work-related stress had put her in a "haze".

The SDT found her actions to be a deliberate attempt to mislead both the client and the firm, especially given that one email in the chain - which painted Roberts in a more favourable light - was left untouched.

Nonetheless, accounting for Roberts’ deterioration of health, overwhelmingly positive character references and "hitherto unblemished record", the tribunal said that her actions were merely "a moment of madness".

Outcome

The SDT imposed a 12-month suspension on Roberts and ordered her to pay costs of £25,000.