Tribunal told miners not 'misled'

Mr Beresford earned almost £17m in 2006

A solicitor accused of dishonestly taking cuts from miners' compensation has told a tribunal his firm made sure clients were properly informed.

Jim Beresford and Douglas Smith, of Doncaster-based Beresfords Solicitors, have denied 11 counts of serious professional misconduct.

The Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal heard the men made huge profits through a government compensation scheme.

Mr Beresford, 58, said he did not "steer people towards anything".

Timothy Dutton, acting for the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority (SRA), has said the solicitors had failed to act in the interests of clients.

He earlier told the hearing they had not given adequate advice and had entered into conditional and contingency fee agreements against their clients' best interests, which were "unacceptable".

A decision that every time someone comes in we need to tell them someone else might offer it cheaper - that is a novel idea to me Jim Beresford

But Mr Beresford insisted his firm would make sure clients understood the arrangements they were entering into.

He told the hearing: "There are some clients with greater needs than others and I would hope people in my firm would go that extra mile to understand that and make sure these explanations were given and I believe they were."

He said all clients were "informed of the options so they could choose the one they preferred".

The compensation scheme was set up by the government because of British Coal's lack of safety standards and led to hundreds of thousands of claims from former miners and their families.

The tribunal has heard the firm's profits rocketed with the advent of coal claims and that between 25 and 30% of a miners' damages could be deducted by Beresfords.

Mr Beresford said that when the firm began taking on mining claims from 1999 he did not know other firms were not charging success fees.

"My knowledge as to what my competitors were doing increased as time passed," he said.

When Mr Dutton suggested clients should have been told about other firms' arrangements, Mr Beresford said: "A decision that every time someone comes in we need to tell them someone else might offer it cheaper - that is a novel idea to me."

In the year to September 2006, Mr Beresford earned almost £17m.

The hearing continues.