Solicitor in Andrews case charged with fraud

Tim Robinson, the solicitor of Tracie Andrews, the woman convicted for the murder of her boyfriend in a Worcestershire country lane after she had claimed that he had been a victim of road rage, was last week charged with conspiracy to defraud the Legal Aid Board.

Robinson, the former senior partner of Robinsons, which is now disbanded but was once one of the UK's biggest criminal law firms, will appear in court on 22 December after being charged at Stroud police station.

His charging last Friday (31 October) was the culmination of a two-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into misuse of legal aid funds.

As The Lawyer has earlier revealed, 17 former employees of Robinsons were arrested in April in a series of dawn raids on their homes across the West Country and questioned by the Serious Fraud Office, but were later released without any charges being laid.

Robinson's own home was raided in 1995.

At the time of the raids, Robinson was in Tenerife interviewing witnesses for his client Tracie Andrews, who was later convicted of the murder of her boyfriend Lee Harvey.

He issued a statement saying the alleged irregularities, dating from 1991 and 1992, had nothing to do with his new firm, Smith Robinson & Co.

In a statement the SFO said, "Mr Robinson has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the Legal Aid Board," but would not give any further information.