A CROOKED solicitors clerk from Banbury paid off £4,000 of customers' debt with cash taken from other clients, a misconduct hearing was told.

Elizabeth Gough pretended she had recovered the money owed to the clients in court judgements when in fact she had simply taken it from another account.

In one case Gough paid out £1,886 and in another £2,000 was sent to trusting clients using others customer's money, the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal heard.

Bosses at Blake Lapthorn Linnell, in Westway, Oxford, put her on extended leave in January 2004 to investigate the cases when they discovered there was a problem.

Within days Gough sent a letter of resignation in which she stated: "I apologise for the embarrassment I have caused to both the department and the firm."

Stephen Battersby, for the Law Society, said: "It is not suggested that she has lined her own pockets by stealing client's money.

"What is suggested against her is that having been employed as a clerk, she had misused one client's monies to deal with the affairs of other clients.

"It was done by her in an attempt to cover up the fact she had not done what she ought to have done in order to make recoveries of debts for clients.

"She led them to believe judgements had been obtained and the money would be forthcoming when this was not the case and perpetuated that deception by paying client A with monies held to the account of client B."

Gough, of The Camelias, Banbury, did not attend the hearing in central London.

Tribunal chairman David Leverton said: "It is misuse of clients money and she covered up her failure in acting for clients in a proper and efficient manner and misled them.

"What she did amounts in our view to dishonest behaviour."

The tribunal decided to impose a Section 43 order, which means that no law firm can employ Gough without permission from the Law Society.

She was also ordered to pay costs of £1,221.30.