Barrister-turned-solicitor Frances Brough is facing jail — again — for defrauding the Law Society out of more than £22,000 in bogus travel expenses.
Brough has only recently been released from prison after receiving a six-month sentence in October for attempting to bite police officers and spitting in her elderly parents’ faces during a violent row over a will.
Two years prior to that she received a community order for apparently biting the arm of a neighbour, to which she is reported to have “hung on like a dog”.
The 41 year-old had initially denied the nine counts of fraud against her, relating to claims made to the Law Society for rail travel, accommodation and care allowance costs totalling £22,847 between January 2009 and July 2011.
But having been due to stand trial, she admitted a single fraud charge reflecting the overall criminality and the individual counts were dropped.
Brough’s sentencing has been delayed until March 28 to allow for a psychiatric report to be prepared. In the meantime, she has been remanded to Durham prison and, unsurprisingly, been suspended as Law Society Council representative for the North East of England.
The decision to prepare the psychiatric report comes, according to The Journal, after allegations from Brough’s parent’s that she harassed them again over the Christmas period, amounting to a suspected breach of a non-molestation order in place since the events in October.
At the hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, Judge John Price reflected on Brough’s tragic last few years: “You hear some sad cases, don’t you? I see the defendant organised the ball at Gray’s Inn a few years ago.”