Legal aid fraud charges have been humiliating: solicitor

A SOLICITOR accused of making fraudulent legal aid claims has told a court of the unbearable pressure he has been under.

Damien McDaid denies eight counts of false accounting by submitting fraudulent claims to the Legal Services Agency between July 2010 and January 2012.

McDaid (44), from Templegrove in the Buncrana Road area of Londonderry, is alleged to have fraudulently claimed in the region of £10,000. The jurors at Derry Crown Court sitting in Coleraine were earlier told that the Legal Services Agency withheld almost £200,000 of payments from the defendant over a six-year period.

Questioned by his barrister, Brian McCartney QC, the defendant said he set up his sole practice in October 2007 and initially worked long hours. He described his early work routine as madness and did not realise that he was gradually burning out.

The defendant told the jury that in January 2012 he was informed he had been investigated by the agency, referred to the Law Society and police, and payments were suspended. He attended a Law Society disciplinary hearing in May 2013, then ordered to pay costs of £2,900 and told that he could no longer work as a sole practitioner.

Asked by Mr McCartney what personal impact these matters have had on him for the last five years, the defendant said the pressure was at times unbearable. He described it as overwhelming, humiliating, embarrassing and life-changing.

He said he constantly had sleepless nights, he no longer socialised and he had put on eight stones in weight.

The defendant became emotional when he told jurors that he opened his practice in October 2007, which was just two weeks after his brother had died. He said he did so to throw himself into his work in a bid to take his brother’s death off his mind but struggled to cope with it.

The defendant said the legal aid forms at the centre of the case contained mistaken rather than intentionally misleading information. The trial continues.

Claims: Damien McDaid