A SOLICITOR who transferred £1.2million of his clients’ money to his own account to fund his gambling addiction has been struck off.

Richard Sedgley, who repaid the money, said he was in a “kamikaze state of mind” and had “pushed the sod-it button” when he committed the dishonesty last year.

Mr Sedgley, a past president of Bournemouth Rotary Club and founding trustee of a Tibetan Buddhist centre, said his reasoning had been clouded by two bereavements.

His firm Richard Sedgley and Co based at Old Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, was closed by the industry’s regulator last June after the allegations came to light.

Mr Sedgley had been a solicitor since 1978 and had his own practice since 1988.

A hearing at the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal heard that between February and April last year, Mr Sedgley made 59 improper transfers from his client account to his own account, ranging from £1,000 to £90,000.

He regularly replaced the shortage between February 17 and March 29. But between March 29 and June 29, the account was left short by varying amounts, up to a maximum of £366,000. The money was all replaced by June 15.

Mr Sedgley’s legal representatives said his actions came “at a time of great stress, shock and grief”. He had lost a colleague and a close friend and was in a “kamikaze state of mind”.

The tribunal was told that “after a build-up of work pressures and personal grief he had ‘pushed the sod it button’,” its report noted.

After the last transfer on April 26, he had vowed to stop and started correcting matters, the tribunal was told.

Margaret Neville, a solicitor who had known Mr Sedgley for more than 30 years, told the tribunal she had found him honest, “much liked and respected in the area”.

Richard Whitham, a retired solicitor who saw him regularly at the Rotary Club, found the behaviour “totally out of character”.

The tribunal said in its judgment: “Whilst the tribunal took into account the fact that the respondent’s behaviour in the relevant period was out of character, and considered carefully the difficult circumstances he faced at the time, it was forced to the irresistible conclusion that in making such a large number of transfers, totalling a staggering £1,204,000, from February to April 2016, the respondent’s conduct was dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people.”

Ordering him to pay £5,600 in costs, it added: “This was a sad case, as until this period of misconduct the respondent had been a good and honest solicitor. However, the maintenance of the reputation of the profession, as one whose members could be trusted to the ends of the earth, required that the respondent should be struck off the roll.”