UK Law Gazette
A solicitor who has been fined over multiple drink drive convictions said his three-hour daily commute combined with long working hours led to him relying on alcohol.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said it took a ‘compassionate approach, one grounded in the particular and individual circumstances of this case rather than a mechanical application of principle’ in sanctioning Vipul Kapoor.
Kapoor, admitted in 2009, admitted the allegations against him which included three drink driving convictions between 2017 and 2020 and failing to promptly report his convictions to the SRA. In relation to the third conviction, Kapoor was also alleged to have driven a vehicle whilst disqualified and without insurance and was also found to be in possession of cocaine. Kapoor was alleged to have failed to promptly reported his convictions for the offences to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Kapoor has been abstinent since December 2023, the tribunal heard.
The SDT judgment noted evidence from Dr Anthony John Wilkins, a consultant general adult and forensic psychiatrist, who said Kapoor had been ‘psychologically and in all likelihood physically, dependent on alcohol’ at the time of the first two convictions and ‘probably at the time of the third’. That dependency had not arisen in isolation, the judgment said. ‘A confluence of significant life stressors’ including ‘the pressures of a promotion that brought with it a punishing three-hour daily commute…had collectively precipitated his decline’.
