By Lucy caulkett-
A solicitor who began evading train fares in his first year of practise has been banned and fined £3,000 in costs .
Adam Kemeny has been struck off the solicitors roll and forced to pay costs of £3,000, which really equates to a fine for his misconduct. The 38,000 a year solicitor avoided paying around £650 in fares to travel from east London to Redhill in Kent, after noticing that he could leave stations without ‘tapping out’ his travel card. He eventually started skipping the whole daily return fare of almost £17. However, he was caught out in October 2017 when a Govia ticket inspector checked his ticket.
The outstanding fares were calculated by Govia at £650. He was eventually dismissed by his firm and has since found work for an outsourcing company checking documents for ongoing litigation.Kememy told a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing he had ‘taken his eye off the ball’ and insisted he would usually do the right thing in his personal and professional life.
He said the voice in his head which would stopped him doing something wrong was ‘switched off’ and he had ‘acted automatically’ during his four-hour round commute. Kemeny told the tribunal he was ‘incredibly embarrassed’ , but said he retained the faith of his family who knew how much he loved being a solicitor. Unfortunately for Kemeny, loving being a solicitor means respecting and abiding by the law, something he failed to do.
Solicitors are expected to instinctively know what the right thing to do is, and to abide by it.They know their valued and respected position in society, and betraying that always comes at a cost.
The tribunal found Kemeny had acted dishonestly and he continued to commit misconduct over a period of time. He knew – or ought reasonably to have known – that his actions were in breach of the obligations to protect the public and the reputation of the legal profession. Despite Kemeny stating that he intended to end his misconduct, his actions ceased only when he was caught by the inspector. Had he not been caught, he would have probably continued indulging in his misconduct indefinitely.