Client accused of theft from tenant - No Further Action

Case study summary

Our client worked for an estate agents and had been accused of stealing property belonging to one of the tenants. He denied this and wanted to clear his name, instructing our firm to ensure that he stood the best chance of doing this. We ensured that no further action was taken.

Case study

Our client had attended one of the tenants addresses in a building managed by his employers. He had entered the address in order to inspect the property after the tenant had failed to pay rent for the previous few months. After completing the inspection, he left the property and returned to his offices.

However, when he returned, the tenant had called the office and accused our client of taking some jewellery from her bedroom. She contacted the police and our client was asked to attend a voluntary interview. Our client was adamant that he had not taken anything from the property and suspected that the tenant was making this claim to avoid having to move out of the property, for which she was in arrears.

Terrified of what this might mean for his reputation and his career, our client instructed our firm to represent him at this interview. Our specialist lawyer attended and questioned the officer prior to the interview, attempting to obtain some more details about the allegation itself. From this discussion, they were able to discover that the complainant had been avoiding the officers attempts to contact her and had refused to disclose the specifics of the item that she said had been taken by our client. It was clear at this point that her allegation was hollow and purely designed to distract from her tenancy issues with the company.

A detailed prepared statement was drafted by our lawyer and read on our client's behalf during the interview. The statement set out our client's denial and what he actually did on the day of the initial inspection.

Following the interview, the case was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to review and, ultimately, the investigation was closed.

Our client was able to return to work without this allegation hanging over him.