DISGRACED coroner Lionel Skingley has begun a three-year jail sentence for plundering nearly £1m from clients to fund a champagne lifestyle in Oxfordshire.

Skingley, 53, who lives at Deddington, hung his head in shame as he was sentenced at Knightsbridge Crown Court.

He become the youngest coroner in the UK at the age of 33. But the father-of-three, who had been coroner for north Kent, systematically dipped into the coffers of clients from 1989 onwards.

He ran Skingley and Co, with crooked lawyers Geoffrey Hufton and Robert Hammond.

Skingley, now bankrupt, had owned a holiday cottage in Cornwall as well as his home in New Street, Deddington.

Since the Law Society wound up the partnership in 1993 the compensation fund have had to pay out nearly £1.5m to meet client losses.

Passing sentence Judge Timothy Pontius said the largest sums were taken by Skingley, helping to pay his mortgage and refurbish his homes.

"The conspiracy finan- ced your champagne lifestyle," said the judge.

He said all three had brought disgrace and shame on themselves, their families and their profession. The three lawyers were struck off by the Law Society in 1993. Skingley admitted conspiring with Hammond, 41, and Hufton, 48, to steal from clients. After a trial lasting nearly two-and-a half months Hufton and Hammond were each found guilty of conspiring to steal and of eight charges of theft. They were jailed for three and a half years.

The jury heard that Skingley qualified as a solicitor in the early 1970s and started his practice in Kent in 1983. But a routine Law Society inspection of Skingley and Co uncovered a shortfall on the client account. Prosecutor Andrew Baillie said the three defendants had "authorised the removal from client accounts of hundreds of thousands of pounds of other people's money." and spent it on the cost of running their firm and on living expenses."

The offences spanned from July 1 1989 to April 27 1993. Hufton, of Rainham, and Hammond, of Tonbridge, both Kent, denied the charges.

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