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Premiums paid by Apprentices
Despite strong recommendations to the contrary,
11
was reported that some solicitors still charged
Premiums to apprentices. It was agreed that the Court
Examiners would draft definite recommendations
about this.
Criminal Legal Aid
Tribute was paid to the Bar Council for the excel-
,<?
nce of its Report.
Civil Legal Aid
The Council had submitted recommendations on
behalf of the Society to the Committee on Civil Legal
Aid and Advice.
Non-acceptance of affidavits from English solicitors
as to English Law
The President of the High Court had ordered that
the Probate Office should only accept affidavits from
English barristers as to English Law and not from
English solicitors, although affidavits from Northern
Ireland solicitors as to Northern Ireland Law are
acceptable; furthermore an Irish solicitor's evidence
of Irish law is acceptable in England. The President
was requested to write to the President of the High
Court to rectify this.
Duty to insure property
A solicitor is under a duty to advise his clicnt to
insure, and he would be negligent if he did not do so.
HANDICAPPED SOLICTOR
Mrs. Sheila Fidler, 40, a book-keeper, confessed at
feesside Crown Court that she had swindled the
handicapped solicitor who trusted her with his
financial affairs.
Mrs. Fidler, who earned £10 a week and lived in a
manor house on the stolen money, changed her plea
to guilty on 15 sample charges of theft and false
accounting.
She had been accused of 33 counts involving a
t20,000 fraud on Mr. David Haslam, 42, a multiple
sclerosis victim.
Mrs. Fidler, of Exelby, North Yorkshire, was
sentenced by Judge George Milner, who ordered that
Jo not guilty plea charges remain on the file.
'Bled white'
Mr. Brian Walsh, prosecuting, said that bv her
admissions Mrs. Fidler agreed that she drew excess
^ages for herself from the practice in Middlesbrough
during 1970.
She also admitted falsifying the firm's accounts,
paying her own household bills with company money,'
and transferring funds dircct from the firm's accounts
to hers. Mr. Haslam, now seriously ill in hospital, and
his father Mr. Harry Haslam, 70, a retired company
director, were forced to sell their homes to keep the
firm going when they were "bled white" by Mrs.
Fidler.
Mrs. Haslam, 39, who lives in a council house in
North Yorkshire, told the jury yesterday that her
husband trusted Mrs. Fidler implicitly.
Mrs. Fidler and her husband Brian, 45, then a £24-
a-week factory worker, are thought to have an
extensive antique collection at their
five-bedroom
manor house, with its stables and paddock.
Mr. Haslam was a keen rugby player and skier and
climbed the Matterhorn before the onset of his illness
in 1965. His firm collapsed in 1971, four years after
Mrs. Fidler joined it as cashier and book-keeper for
two days a week.
ESTATE TAX NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
The amount of Capital Transfer Tax paid on
El a t es left by people who die after March 12 this
^ a r will no longer be published by the Probate
Registry at Somerset House.
The tax statement will be kept privately at the
Lstate Duty Office and it will now be up to individual
e
*ecutors to disclose how much an estate has been
Penalised.
The dropping of the tax figure from the probabte
document is the result of this year's Finance Act
^hich became law on March 12. It repeated the
Customs and Indian Revenue Act of 1881 which
Required gross and net values of estates and death
u t
y paid to be published on every probate grant.
It was felt that figures under Capital Transfer Tax
nich has replaced Estate Duty would be rather mis-
^ading and would not have as much relevance as the
old duty because there are provisions for postpone-
ment of the liability.
Lifetime gifts
For instance no Capital Transfer Tax is paid on
property left between husband and wife so that a man
leaving £500,000 all to his wife would have no tax
shown against his estate. C.T.T. covers lifetime gifts
which may have to be calculated.
The publication of gross and net valuations for
estates could also be dropped because of the repeal by
the 1975 Finance Act, but the head of the Family
Division, Sir George Baker, has decided that they
should continue to be shown.
The publication of wills is not affected. This comes
under the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolida-
tion) Act of 1925, which says that wills should be
open for inspection at a fee.