The former director of one of the country’s biggest legal aid firms will appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal later this month. A decision to prosecute John Blavo, who headed national firm Blavo & Co Solicitors Ltd, was published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority today.
Blavo is alleged to have provided or facilitated the provision of falsified documents to the Legal Aid Agency relating to client files, medical reports and tribunal decisions. It is further alleged that in 2015 he was involved in producing false documents.
The SRA also alleges that Blavo encouraged or gave instructions for the falsification of documents on two client files between 2013 and 2015.
The allegations are subject to a hearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and are as yet unproven. Blavo’s hearing is listed for three days, starting on 13 March.
The SRA’s notice states that the decision to prosecute Blavo was made in December 2018. It is not clear why the case has taken so long to come before the tribunal.
It is now more than seven years since Blavo & Co, which had 18 offices across the country, was shut down by the regulator at a cost of around £800,000. The Court of Appeal ruled in October 2018 that the SRA could pursue Blavo for the money spent shutting down his firm.
Later that same year, the High Court ruled found it was ‘more likely than not’ that ‘systemic fraud’ had taken place in claims by the firm for legal aid.
Mr Justice Pepperall said Blavo should be liable to the lord chancellor over what the judge described as an ‘endemic’ culture of dishonesty. His lawyer had called the allegation that he dishonestly obtained a large percentage of the firm’s turnover ‘inherently implausible’.
John Blavo was admitted to the roll in 1997 and was the senior partner of Blavo & Co before its incorporation, after which he was sole shareholder and director.
The firm is now in compulsory liquidation. The most recent report from liquidators, filed with Companies House earlier this month, shows the business owes £33.1m in total to 357 unsecured creditors.
The report states that Blavo had ‘received excess funds’ of £4.3m drawn from the company which did not relate to wages or loans. He was subsequently declared bankrupt and therefore a claim has been submitted in the bankruptcy estate on behalf of the company.
