TV sting solicitor sentenced to three years

A SOLICITOR targeted by a “TV sting” was yesterday jailed for three years after being convicted of inventing stories to get a man off a drugs supplying offence — unaware he was an investigative reporter telling him a cover tale.

David Lancaster, 56, from Harbourside, Havant, Hampshire, was told by Judge Graham Cottle at Exeter Crown Court: “You broke every rule in the book in a breathtaking display of unprofessional conduct.”

Lancaster had pleaded not guilty. The court heard he attempted to incite Neil Ansell, a journalist with the BBC TV Inside Out programme, to pervert the course of justice.