Solicitor jailed for swindling £224,000

A former solicitor who swindled £224,000 from his late uncle's estate and also tried to defraud that of his stepfather was jailed for three years yesterday.

Nigel Guy Pollard, 59, "made himself a lottery winner" by milking Robert Shearer's estate for almost a decade while acting as its executor, Birmingham Crown Court was told.

Pollard, of Geldock Road, Little Billing, Northamptonshire, was found guilty last month of 24 counts of theft, attempted theft, false accounting and attempted deception after a trial that had lasted five weeks.

Sentencing the disgraced former lawyer, Judge Marshall said that the crimes represented a breach of trust not only towards the beneficiaries of the estates, but also towards the deceased men.

"There is no doubt in my mind that this passes the standards that are required for a custodial sentence," the judge added.

Police began an investigation into Pollard's affairs four years ago after the solicitor's business partner at the time, with whom he was running a practice in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, learnt that the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors was investigating him.

The trial was told Pollard was supposed to have acted as a trustee for the estate of his late uncle, which included a successful offshore company based on the Isle of Man and three Spanish homes.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Stuart Rafferty told the jury that, instead of keeping the 15 per cent to which he was entitled as a beneficiary of the will, Pollard abused his position as executor and helped himself to funds deposited in his uncle's Danish bank account.

The offences also included one count of attempted deception, which related to a claim to a half share of a property that had been included in the will of his late stepfather, William Young. The offences were committed between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s.