The ex-managing partner of Harbottle & Lewis has been fined £20,000 for breaching the Solicitors Practice Rules. He said that he had not noticed an email from a paralegal which revealed that phone hacking was rife at the News of the World.
Lawrence Abramson was instructed in May 2007 by the paper's owner, News International, to review staff emails after its reporter Clive Goodman was jailed for phone hacking. Goodman claimed that his bosses supported his hacking and that colleagues also engaged in the illegal practice. Abramson was asked to see if anything in a NOTW email archive supported Goodman's claims.
Abramson set two paralegals and a trainee on the job. After reviewing the material, one of the paralegals, named 'E' in proceedings, sent Abramson an email which warned him against giving the all-clear because she had found incriminating NOTW emails. But instead Abramson gave an opinion to NI confirming that his investigation had not uncovered any evidence to support Goodman's claims. NI relied on the opinion to insist that hacking was not widespread. Four years later the emails which E had flagged emerged and came to be known as the "toxic emails" at the Leveson Inquiry.
Abramson was called to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, where he said the week of the review was "probably the busiest" of his life, because the firm's year-end was approaching. So busy in fact, that he took the Wednesday off to fly to Athens to watch Liverpool in the Champions League Final (where he had his ticket stolen and had to watch the game in a bar). E sent Abramson the smoking gun email the next day, when he was so busy he was working from home, but he said he missed it. He was sent it again by a temporary secretary, but he said she used a heading he didn't recognise and he missed that one, too. Then he went on holiday.
At an early stage in the investigation Abramson admitted acting in a way which compromised or impaired the proper standard of work and was cleared of the other two charges. He said piecing together his error had been "very stressful" and a "blight" which had embarrassed him "ever since". In its judgment the tribunal said his failure to see the email was due to a "genuine, major but inadvertent oversight" and uncharacteristic of his "usual high standards", adding that "it was clear that he had had a chaotic week, although the chaos was largely of his own making". All that and Liverpool lost 2-1.
Tip Off ROF
Lawrence Abramson was instructed in May 2007 by the paper's owner, News International, to review staff emails after its reporter Clive Goodman was jailed for phone hacking. Goodman claimed that his bosses supported his hacking and that colleagues also engaged in the illegal practice. Abramson was asked to see if anything in a NOTW email archive supported Goodman's claims.
Abramson set two paralegals and a trainee on the job. After reviewing the material, one of the paralegals, named 'E' in proceedings, sent Abramson an email which warned him against giving the all-clear because she had found incriminating NOTW emails. But instead Abramson gave an opinion to NI confirming that his investigation had not uncovered any evidence to support Goodman's claims. NI relied on the opinion to insist that hacking was not widespread. Four years later the emails which E had flagged emerged and came to be known as the "toxic emails" at the Leveson Inquiry.
Abramson was called to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, where he said the week of the review was "probably the busiest" of his life, because the firm's year-end was approaching. So busy in fact, that he took the Wednesday off to fly to Athens to watch Liverpool in the Champions League Final (where he had his ticket stolen and had to watch the game in a bar). E sent Abramson the smoking gun email the next day, when he was so busy he was working from home, but he said he missed it. He was sent it again by a temporary secretary, but he said she used a heading he didn't recognise and he missed that one, too. Then he went on holiday.
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"You'll neever taaaalk alone" |
At an early stage in the investigation Abramson admitted acting in a way which compromised or impaired the proper standard of work and was cleared of the other two charges. He said piecing together his error had been "very stressful" and a "blight" which had embarrassed him "ever since". In its judgment the tribunal said his failure to see the email was due to a "genuine, major but inadvertent oversight" and uncharacteristic of his "usual high standards", adding that "it was clear that he had had a chaotic week, although the chaos was largely of his own making". All that and Liverpool lost 2-1.
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