Solicitor lied to client for 17 years pretending she'd won £360k workplace injury pay out

Conor Gogarty & Isabelle Bates
·4-min read
A stock image of a woman
A stock image of a woman -Credit:natalia gdovskaia


A solicitor lied to a client for an astonishing 17 years telling her that she had won £360,000 in a personal injury claim against a former workplace. Nicholas Giles Collins, who was a partner at Slater & Gordon in Cardiff, has now been barred from practising the profession.

He admitted to making "a series of false and misleading statements" to his client. She had worked at Inland Revenue - now known as HMRC - between 1996 and 2003.

She made a claim under a compensation scheme for employees affected by repetitive strain injuries and similar disorders in around 1997. The woman was originally offered a £30,000 settlement in 2002, WalesOnline reports.

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However, after she retired the following year on ill health grounds, she sought a higher figure in compensation. Mr Collins took on the claim in 2004.

The client was 24 years old at the start of proceedings. In 2013, he lied that instructed counsel had valued her claim at £245,000 and the following year he lied that she had won £360,136 in compensation.

Collins said that he had begun enforcement proceedings of a court order against HMRC which was in fact a lie. To cover his tracks, he even made fake documents including notes of court hearings which never happened.

A Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Mr Collins had actually never made any contact with HMRC and there had never been any court hearings. His client had never been awarded any damages and he had taken no "substantive steps" to progress the claim.

In 2020 the lies were found out after the client contacted her MP Mel Stride who represents central Devon. The woman believed that HMRC was delaying her payment.

But when the MP made enquiries with HMRC, he was told there was no record of a claim being made. The client then reported Mr Collins to the Solicitors Regulation Authority as she believed he was dishonest and had committed fraud.

Collins admitted to Slater & Gordon that he had misled the client for a long time. An internal investigation found he had gone to "great lengths" to conceal what was happening and he even closed the claim on the law firm's case management system so it would not be listed as active.

The client said in a witness statement: "If the claim had been sorted quickly as it should have been then my husband and I would’ve been able to use that money for our retirement. It makes me very angry.

"I feel like I have been conned. Mr Collins caused me considerable stress and anxiety since he took over my case in 2004 and this continues as my compensation case is far from being resolved. I have sleepless nights thinking about if this will ever be sorted.

"As HMRC are no longer prepared to deal with my claim and S&G (Slater & Gordon) are unable to continue to act for me, I’m not convinced that I will get what I was awarded originally or anything at all. The only option I can see open to me is to sue S&G which would mean having to trust another firm of solicitors and having the continuing stress and expense of legal action in order to bring about a resolution to my claim.

"My compensation case has dominated most of my life. I was 24 when my case started and currently my claim is in its 26th year without no resolution in sight. I do not know why Mr Collins would do this to me, why he would string me along all these years.

"At any time over the last 19 years, he could have owned up but even now after he has been caught out he has not acknowledged or apologised for his dishonesty." The woman said that the expectation of the money had contributed to her husband taking early retirement in 2013.

Mr Collins graduated in law from Cardiff University in 1992 and became a solicitor in 1995 according to his LinkedIn page. He was an associate solicitor for Russell Jones & Walker at the time when he took on the case.

The firm was acquired in 2012 by Slater & Gordon where Collins was a partner. He resigned in December 2021 while facing disciplinary proceedings at the firm and later brought an unsuccessful employment tribunal claim alleging the firm had unfairly dismissed him.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found Mr Collins had cooperated in full with the investigation and had "a previously unblemished 20-year career" . However, when it came to the former Inland Revenue worker's case he had acted dishonestly over "an extensive period of time".

The tribunal concluded that the only reasonable option was to strike him off the roll of solicitors. He was ordered to pay costs of £6,316.

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