Original - Solicitors from Hell .com Est. Feb 03 |
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Adam Sampson Legal Services Ombudsma (ex) (Sacked) Adam
the 'Ant' caught with his hand in the Till to support his £166,000+
a year pay whinging all excuses 'No not me'
lol.
When I sent a complaint to the 'Ant' concerning a member of the Law Society he lied to me . "once a liar always a " |
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Robert Neill MP |
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Adam Sampson |
Comments on the letter from the Chair of the Office for on the departure of Adam Sampson as Chief Legal Ombudsman. I am writing to amplify and, in some instances correct, the information you have received from the Office for Legal Complaints about the circumstances of my departure from my role as Chief Legal Ombudsman, since I am concerned that if I do not there is a possibility that the Committee may not get a full picture of events. Like the OLC, I do not think it appropriate to go into extensive detail. However, I would like to set the record straight about a number of matters. Investigation The OLC statement implies that it investigated the issues of financial management only after my suspension. This is not the case. The issues were raised with LeO in late 2013 via one of a number of anonymous letters making a variety of baseless claims about misconduct on the part of senior staff (letters which seem to have been prompted by the staffing cuts which were then being implemented). The OLC tasked the internal auditors, KPMG, to investigate, which they then did. The results of that investigation were then shared with the National Audit Office, which again did a full review. The new Chair, Steve Green, personally reviewed the detail and commissioned an external law firm to repeat the exercise. All these relevant facts were known by August 2014; no disciplinary action was taken until February 2015 MoJ suspension The statement implies that my resignation was prompted
by the MoJ decision to suspend me as Accounting Officer. This is not
the case. I had been intending to resign for some time, having become
aware that the issue was going to cause reputational problems for LeO
and embroil the Ombudsman in controversy. I had initially discussed
whether or not I should leave LeO with the new Chair when he took up
post in April 2014 and he encouraged me to stay. However, I told him
in August that I would leave as soon as the law firm investigation was
completed. Once this had happened, there was a period of negotiation
about the terms of my departure, which the Chair regularly discussed
with the MoJ and senior staff at LeO. A meeting was fixed between the
Chair and his advisor and myself and my lawyer for 14 November to iron
out the final details. |
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Resignation |
(1)The
'Ant' is saying he was 'suspended' "just hours before my resignation"
. . The MoJ caught him with his hand in the TILL and Sacked him for fiddling the Books |
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It has been said that I was dismissed. This is untrue: I resigned. Having agreed the terms of my resignation - that I would leave on 17 November with an agreed reference and press statement, receiving my pay but without having to serve my notice - Steve Green and I met at the office where, by arrangement, we agreed the press statement and told the management team and then the full staff. Mr Green was fulsome in his praise and support, emphasising that I was leaving without a stain on my character, and he arranged to return the next day to discuss with the management team how they were to reconfigure themselves in my absence (he had already informed the acting CEO of his new role until an interim could be appointed). He then left to inform the then Permanent Secretary of the change. I said my goodbyes, handed in my equipment and left. Later than night, I received a phonecall from the Chair's advisor telling me that following the meeting with the Permanent Secretary, the agreement had changed. No explanation for the change of direction has ever been given to me. Nevertheless, I held to my resignation, considering that it was the proper thing to do whatever the arrangements around it. Suspension Following my resignation, I was formally required to work my six months notice period. However, since the staff had been told that I had left and arrangements were already in hand to appoint an interim CEO, it was clear that it would not be helpful if I returned to the office. Accordingly, some days later, the Chair wrote suspending me "pending investigation". As I have said, no investigation appears to have taken place during this period and no disciplinary action was taken for three months. "Dismissal" The OLC has repeatedly claimed that I was dismissed. This is simply untrue. Since I had already resigned by the time disciplinary action was even mooted (it certainly had not been mooted before), the notion that I could subsequently properly be "dismissed with notice" is meaningless: indeed, if it were to have a meaning, since my notice period was six months, it theoretically means that I would be employed for beyond the period covered by my resignation. While I am not a lawyer, I am assured by my legal team that the term "dismissal" used in these circumstances is bizarre. The more proper claim is that there was a decision made by the first panel, Chaired by Mr Green himself, that I was to be dismissed immediately. It is perhaps worth noting that this decision was not because of my actions per se but because I had, by that stage, been permanently removed as an Accounting Officer by the then Permanent Secretary, a decision with which I profoundly disagreed (not least because the decisions for which I was being held accountable were decisions made by my then Board using powers conferred upon them by Parliament under the 2007 Legal Services Act, powers which they were statutorily entitled to use) but a decision which was only challengeable by judicial review. Since Accounting Officer status was a condition of my contract, the Permanent Secretary's actions had placed me in breach of contract, which entitled the OLC to dismiss me without notice. Had this decision remained in place,
the OLC would be entitled to claim that it had dismissed me. However,
an OLC appeal panel overturned this decision, ordering instead that
I "should continue to be employed, and serve [my] notice, until
[my] resignation comes into effect on 17 May 2015". The OLC has
said that the letter is unclear. I can conceive of nothing clearer than
the above statement. If the Committee is in any doubt about the legal
position, I attach a letter sent by my lawyers to the OLC and MoJ clarifying
the point. The decision of the panel was sent out many months ago and
there had been no suggestion from any party that it constituted a dismissal
letter until the MoJ statement in evidence to your committee. While
I sympathise with their desire to support the statement made by the
new Permanent Secretary to your committee, OLC is not entitled to seek
now to change the clear decision made by the appeal panel to achieve
that end. |
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Legal ombudsman suspended over £22,332 train fares Frances Gibb Legal
Editor Adam Sampson claimed the perks as part
of a total of £1.24 million in "novel and contentious"
payments to staff , including himself, at the Office for Legal Complaints
where he was also chief legal ombudsman for England and Wales. The scandal was revealed when the government's spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, refused to sign off the office's accounts. They included £22,332 in expenses claimed between 2010 and 2014 by Adam Sampson. ________________________Paul Rogers for The Times Adam Sampson: ministry described payments as 'novel and contentious' |
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David
Crawford 25 July 2016 01:58 pm |
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Roll
on Friday
Legal Ombudsman to publish names of shoddy solicitors online |