Pervy lawyer struck off for watching PORN with a vulnerable client who offered strip-show as payment
Anthony Dart, 54, met with the young woman, who can not be named, to discuss his fee for legal advice he had given her
A SEEDY solicitor has been struck off for watching porn with a vulnerable client who offered a strip-show as payment for his services.
Pervert Anthony Dart, 54, met with the young woman, who can not be named, to discuss his fee for legal advice he had given her when she admitted she couldn't afford to pay.
Instead she suggested Mr Dart, whose company is based in Barnstaple, Devon, might like to do a topless photo shoot instead and they went on to exchange a series of raunchy and suggestive texts.
She also allegedly told him she was an aspiring model who had recently been asked to perform in a pornographic film and showed him several clips online.
The sordid details of their relationship emerged during a solicitor's disciplinary tribunal where Mr Dart was accused of improper behaviour with a client.
Mr Dart, of Tony Dart Solicitors and Advocates, was ordered to pay £12,000 and banned from practising law anywhere in the UK.
The tribunal heard that Mr Dart met with the young woman on October 19, 2013.
In a statement to the tribunal he said: "She was quite animated and said she had been in contact with someone via the internet which could lead to her being paid lots of money for participating in a porn movie.
"She shooed me out of my chair in order to use my computer and went onto a website which contained adult porn.
"She showed me a couple of clips over a few minutes."
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The woman continued to text Mr Dart asking to arrange the photo shoot, who claims he told her to stop.
He added: "In the light of that text I deleted subsequent texts from her and late one night after leaving the Custody Centre very tired and in the knowledge that I was never going to be paid and also worried about where this was going I threw my second phone into the river."
The police also provided the tribunal with transcripts of interviews with Mr Dart and his female client.
Representing the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Jonathan Goodwin showed the court a transcript of Mr Dart's police interview in which he was played a recording of a telephone conversation between himself and the woman.
According to Mr Goodwin Mr Dart made his intentions clear in the recordings.
Mr Goodwin said: "He was discussing with a vulnerable female client the settling of his bill 'rather than in cash but in kind' and these were his words.
"The respondent (Mr Dart) made several attempts to contact Miss BC [the female client's legal name] to make arrangements.
"From the recordings it was clearly intended that there would be explicit photographs and there were clear implications regarding sexual activity."
Mr Goodwin also presented evidence showing Mr Dart was also aware the woman had been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and previously may have suffered with schizophrenia.
Mr Dart admitted to the tribunal that between July 12, 2013, and November 15, 2013, he had participated in discussions with a vulnerable female client in relation to an inappropriate and improper arrangement for the settlement of an outstanding bill of costs and that in or around October 19, of the same year, he watched pornography in his office with a vulnerable female client.
In conversations played to him by the police Mr Dart asked Miss BC not to send explicit texts because they might be checked on by the authorities.
He said what she suggested "would be wonderful and would be nice" and "I mean I don't expect that a session is going to clear the bill".
He went on to say: "I'm sure we could think of some bright ideas where I might end up owing you some money, but at least that would clear the debt as far as I'm concerned.
Mr Dart worked for more than 30 years at North Devon Magistrates Court in Barnstaple.
The tribunal found the evidence presented proved to the required standard that the admitted misconduct had taken place and that Mr Dart had been in breach of Principle Six, relating to maintaining the trust of the public in the solicitor profession.
Mr Dart also presented evidence he hoped would mitigate his actions and the tribunal "accepted that this misconduct occurred in a long unblemished career but it was not a one-off but a series of contacts."
But Mr Tinkler, the chairman of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, who oversaw the hearing said: "There was no suggestion that the respondent [Mr Dart] had committed a criminal offence, but his conduct so greatly and clearly undermined the trust the public would place in solicitors that in the view of the tribunal he could not continue as a member of the profession."
After the case Mr Dart said: "This has been a very difficult time for me.
"I have got to live my life and it is really tough. It is the end of my career. It is a pretty awful time for me and my family.
"I am gutted about the situation."
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