Ashurst Perkins Coie junior lawyer struck off over stolen bike insurance claim

Costly claim

A junior lawyer who tried to claim for a stolen bike that was not covered by his insurance policy has been struck off the roll.

Kieran Ferguson, who was working as a finance solicitor at Ashurst Perkins Coie at the time, was found to have acted dishonestly after submitting a claim for a Cannondale Topstone bicycle and then adding the bike to his policy shortly afterwards.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) heard that Ferguson’s insurance policy covered a different bike, a Cannondale Systemsix, with an insured value of £2,500. The stolen Topstone, worth around £1,699, was not listed on the policy.

The Topstone was stolen on the evening of 10 April 2022 while Ferguson was moving house. He submitted an online insurance claim at 9:29pm that same evening and, around ten minutes later, amended the policy to add the stolen bike.

Ferguson denied that the initial claim was dishonest, arguing that he genuinely believed the policy covered any bike up to the insured value of £2,500. His barrister told the tribunal that the solicitor had been under considerable pressure at the time, including stress connected to the murder of a close childhood friend, difficulties with a house move and the shock of witnessing the bike being stolen by two masked thieves.

But the tribunal rejected Ferguson’s explanation that he thought the policy operated on a multi-bike or value-based basis. It found that the policy clearly identified the Systemsix as the insured bike and said Ferguson’s decision to add the Topstone shortly after making the claim was “compelling evidence” that he knew it had not been covered at the time of the theft.

The tribunal said that if Ferguson had genuinely believed any bike worth up to £2,500 was covered, “there was no need for him to amend the policy at all”.

But things didn’t end with the original claim. Ferguson later gave insurers a false account of when he had switched the policy to cover the Topstone, initially claiming the change was made before the theft.

On 29 April, he asked for the claim to be withdrawn, telling the insurer that the bike was covered under a separate home insurance policy which could pay out more quickly. Zurich refused to accept the withdrawal at that stage and the investigation continued.

The tribunal found both allegations against him proven and concluded that his conduct was dishonest, lacked integrity, undermined public trust in the profession and amounted to an attempt to mislead his insurers. Ferguson, who qualified in 2020, relied on a range of mitigation in an attempt to avoid being struck off.

The tribunal heard that the misconduct took place outside his work as a solicitor, that no insurer ultimately suffered a financial loss and that Ferguson had no previous disciplinary findings.

His legal team argued that the dishonesty arose during an unusually difficult period of his life and that the risk of him behaving dishonestly again was extremely low. The tribunal accepted that Ferguson was “not inherently dishonest” and recognised evidence of his good character and positive professional record, but rejected the suggestion that the case involved a momentary lapse.

It noted that Ferguson had opportunities to correct what he had said but instead continued with the claim and made further misleading statements. “The dishonesty was not confined to an immediate reaction to the theft, nor was it a fleeting lapse,” the tribunal said, adding that it continued during a period in which he had opportunities “to reflect, correct the position, and tell the truth”.

The tribunal concluded that the mitigation did not amount to the “exceptional circumstances” required to avoid the usual sanction following a finding of dishonesty.

Ferguson was struck off the roll and ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £20,757.