Law Society secures further orders against solicitor

THE Law Society has secured further orders against a Co Cork solicitor who is alleged to have withdrawn large sums of money from his firm’s client account for his own benefit.

Earlier this month, the court made an order freezing the assets of and suspended the practising certificate of Alexander Gibbons, who practises as Gibbons & Co Solicitor, Riverside, Kent Street, Clonakilty, Co Cork. The court heard there was a €430,000 deficit in his client account.

The society said it was seeking those orders after forming the view that Mr Gibbons, principal of the firm and working as a solicitor since 1989, had been “guilty of dishonesty”.

An accountant with the society who investigated the solicitor’s accounts found that payments from the client account were made to parties including an employee of Mr Gibbons, Bandon Grammar School, and for Mr Gibbons’s marina boat charge, the court was told.

Yesterday, Patrick Leonard, for the society, said he was making an “unusual” ex parte (one side only represented) further application arising from the society’s concerns about certain matters.

He said the society had been informed by Permanent TSB (PTSB) that Mr Gibbons had sought to have taken his name off a bank mandate in an apparent attempt to evade the accounts freezing order.

PTSB had said Mr Gibbons was listed as a director of a firm and that company’s account held €200 when the freezing order was made.

Since the freezing order, €27,500 had come into that account on June 20.

The society said it was not aware of the source of those funds and was concerned this was an attempt to circumvent the freezing order. This was “very serious” and it was hard to believe a solicitor would do such a thing, counsel said.

A second matter was that Mr Gibbons appeared to have gone into his office since the order was made and to have taken files from it, counsel said. While Mr Gibbons was claiming a right to maintain contact with his office and had said he attended there to prepare for these proceedings, the society believed another person should be present when he did so.

Mr Justice Garret Sheehan said he would make an order prohibiting Mr Gibbons, or any person with notice of the making of the order, attending at the office of the practice unless specifically required to do so by the society.