A lawyer has been jailed for stealing £200k of client money after she was duped by a conman.

Trickster Michael Milner instructed Wigan based lawyer, Rose Egarr, for legal advice on various fraudulent investment schemes that he was involved in from farms to classic cars. During a two year scam, Milner falsely professed to Egarr that he was a leading criminal detective working for an elite special operations unit.  He also claimed that he was minted with various assets ranging from bonds to family trusts, and that he was due to be paid over a million pounds in wages for his line of work. 

In reality he had been made bankrupt and only had £10 to his name. Egarr, who was then the managing partner of Wigan based Arthur Smith law firm fell for Milner's lies, even though the dodgy evidence of Milner's identity included a fake police letter on plain paper, strewn with errors. 

Milner failed to pay his legal fees, despite numerous promises. When the charlatan claimed that he couldn't access his millions as they were "tied up" abroad, he persuaded Egarr to lend him money. The lawyer fleeced a total of £200,000 in client funds to give to Milner. 

Police investigated Milner for his various shady schemes and Egarr's thefts were also revealed. Among his criminal acts, Milner was found to have organised an arson attack on a petting farm as part of an insurance scam.
 
Last year, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal struck Egarr off the role after it emerged that clients lost a third of their money due to the thefts. Egarr suffered a significant fall from grace as her firm collapsed and she had her home repossessed. At the time of the trial she was living in sheltered accommodation on benefits. 

Egarr appeared before the Preston crown court where she denied any wrongdoing . Egarr's lawyer argued that Milner was a persuasive "puppet master". However, last week the court found Egarr guilty of theft and jailed her for two and a half years.

Milner was convicted of numerous offences including fraud and arson and jailed for 17 years and nine months.