Overcharging solicitor struck off

Huxtable overcharged one client by over 600%

A North Devon solicitor has been struck off for overcharging clients by more than £100,000.

Philip Huxtable, 52, was accused of charging up to six times the reasonable amount for work carried out.

Mr Huxtable was the sole practitioner at Pitts Tuckers in Barnstable, the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal was told.

The firm was closed by the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors last October.

Mr Huxtable was accused of withdrawing money from clients' accounts, following a Law Society inspection of the accounts of four of his clients.

Mr Huxtable had been practising for 32 years

The tribunal found Mr Huxtable, who had been practising for 32 years, had overcharged the clients by £102,695 between July 2000 and September 2001.

The Law Society has received 120 compensation claims totalling £1.147m by former clients of Pitts Tuckers as a result of the probe.

It has already paid out £665,000, the hearing in central London, was told.

Peter Cadman, representing the Law Society, said the amount of work done by the solicitor did not justify the charges.

He said in one case, "if he had done all this work there would be sufficient papers to fill two or three bankers' boxes. In fact, it filled two Manila envelopes".

Ill health

Mr Cadman said that the solicitor had overcharged by as much as 606% in one case, charging £12,000 instead of the £1,980 that would be "reasonably expected".

In another case he charged £58,448 instead of £11,825 - an overcharge of 494%.

But Mr Huxtable's friend, barrister Jonathon Fulthorpe, told the tribunal that the solicitor, who was not at the hearing and was not represented, had been overworked and was suffering from ill health.

He said: "He is an extremely honourable and honest man.

Broken man

"Any inference of dishonesty is something he strenuously disputes.

"But he truly regrets the breaches and takes full and unqualified responsibility for them."

He said Mr Huxtable had been ruined and was now "a broken man".

Chair of the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal Richard Bamford ordered Mr Huxtable to pay costs of £15,501.