A family law solicitor who hired a private investigator to find out the address of a litigant in person which he then shared with his client has been fined £17,500.
Sole practitioner Clive Graham Wood, admitted in 1982, was alleged to have attempted to take unfair advantage of Person M’s position as a litigant in person by ‘repeatedly’ asking her for her contact details when he knew or ought to have known that she did not want to provide them and had no legal duty to do so.
He was also alleged to have obtained Person M’s contact details by instructing a private investigator. He then disclosed those details to his client when he knew or ought to have known Person M would not have consented to her details being obtained in such a way, and, under the Family Procedure Rules, Person M was entitled to withhold her contact details until directed to disclose them by a court order.
Wood denied both allegations in their entirety.
Representing himself during the day-and-a-half substantive hearing at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, Wood confirmed in cross examination he had instructed a tracing agent ‘at the specific instructions of my client’.
The three-person panel found both allegations proved but dismissed part of the second allegation that in obtaining Person M’s contact details by hiring a private investigator he had prevented the court from being able to properly determine whether such disclosure should be made.
