Top London lawyer jailed on fraud charges

By Petros Mavros

A London court last week heard how top lawyer Christopher Grierson, 60, destroyed his personal and professional life after being found guilty of misappropriating 1.2 mln pounds, money cleverly siphoned off over a period of four years from his law firm Hogen Lovells.
The court heard how this once brilliant litigator became a ‘whirling dervish’ as his behaviour spiralled out of control with wild spending and credit card bills which saw his monthly outgoings reach 40.000 pounds.
He spent the money on the services of call girls, then became infatuated with a Lebanese woman based in New York who went on to receive cash gifts from Grierson amounting to 280,000 pounds, plus an additional 630.000 which went to pay rent for her NYC apartment.
As a trusted partner at the law firm, Grierson was able over a four year period to systematically fake 57 documents charged to a dormant client account. In a desperate effort to remain solvent, and to hide his lavish spending from his wife and three children, Grierson began forging massive claims for travel expenses, one instance was a claim for 42.000 pounds submitted by him for travel from Heathrow to Los Angeles..
Defending, Grierson’s lawyer Mark Ellison told the court that his client’s life started to spiral out of control in 2005 after the collapse of the BCCI fraud inquiry on which Grierson had worked for several years. He went on to describe how since 2001 Grierson had suffered from depression and serious mental health issues after developing a severe bipolar condition, “this resulted in a consistent theme of failure, and despite his professional success, led him into committing social, sexual, and financial indiscretions which were bound to be exposed.” Ellison described how during this period his client had occasionally used the services of call girls as a “means of escape and a source of affection”.
In January 2006 Grierson became totally infatuated with a Lebanese woman who his lawyer described as “someone who gave the impression of admiring Grierson and was capable of lifting his spirits”. The lawyer further explained that this relation then led his client into a totally different spending league, “his behaviour was truly bizarre, an indicator of the extent to which he had become derailed. He must have lost all reason because he knew deep down that everything about the relationship was false, he had become a victim of manipulation, and indeed might have been a willing victim”.
Grierson’s spending continued to spiral with him doubling his 900.000 pound mortgage to 1.8 mln, he exhausted his overdraft, maximised all his credit cards, and when his monthly outgoings hit 40.000 pounds he was fearful of telling his wife what was going but, in August 2007 she discovered her husband’s transatlantic infidelity and was later granted a divorce.
With his home life in ruins and his professional life about to come to an ignominious end, his lawyer described a man clearly heading for disaster saying: “In ruining his life, he was metaphorically sharing the driving seat with a bipolar mental disorder”.
During this time he continued as an active partner within Hogen Lovells where both his declining mental condition and fraudulent activities had as yet gone undetected. Grierson was able to count the Sultan of Brunei’s brother Jefri as a client, while in 2011 he also took on one of the biggest divorce cases in UK history when he represented hedge fund mathematician Dr Martin Coward in his separation from the tycoon Eleni Ambrosiadou, founder of the IKOS hedge fund for which Dr Coward worked.
The court heard Grierson was currently under psychiatric care and taking medication for his bipolar condition, he had also been labelled as a “significant” suicide risk.
Judge John Price sentenced Grierson to a total of three years in prison for what he described as a “well planned and sophisticated fraud”, with Grierson having “created false documents in order to steal a total of 1.274,414 pounds from his solicitors firm which was then spent on buying sexual favours and affection”.
The Judge went on to say that a positive side to the case was Grierson’s reputation as a first class solicitor, also the fact that he had repaid with interest the money stolen. The mitigating circumstances of Grierson’s mental health was also a factor in the judge’s decision to halve his sentence with the second half being suspended.