A solicitor currently serving 12 years’ imprisonment has been struck off the roll for his previous contempt of court.
The SRA alleged that Stephen David Jones acted in contempt by breaching several court orders from March 2019 issued by Mr Justice Nugee.
Jones’ case was heard by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal immediately after he had been jailed in November for two counts of fraud by abuse of his position as a solicitor, following a private prosecution brought by a property developer. Jones had pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court last month and was said by Judge Martin Griffith to have acted with ‘rank dishonesty’ in relation to money intended to be used by his clients to buy a Scottish castle.
The SRA effectively relied on the contempt conviction, for which Jones was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment. The tribunal heard that Mr Justice Zacaroli said there had been a ‘serious and deliberate failure’ to give information and a failure to comply with various undertakings.
Jones, a solicitor since 1986 who owned London firm Jirehouse Partners, was instructed by a US property developer to purchase Taymouth Castle and sought and obtained more than £10m from a group of investors. He was found to have persistently and repeatedly breached undertakings to pay the fraudulently obtained money back.
In March 2019, the SRA received a report from City firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher raising a number of concerns about Jones. The firm had been instructed to advise on recovery of unused funds which were supposed to be returned to the developer by Jirehouse. Following an initial investigation, the SRA intervened into Jirehouse in May 2019.
In mitigation not accepted or endorsed by the SRA, Jones said he made ‘serious errors of professional judgment’ but that previously his firm had been well-managed and with an impeccable regulatory record. Now in his 60s, Jones lamented that ‘rather than a golden twilight to his long and impressive legal career it will be a chilling purgatory with little or no prospect of future employment’.
He was struck off the roll and no order for costs was made, given Jones’ financial position.
