A SOLICITOR from Prestwich and one of his employees have been convicted of systematically defrauding the Legal Aid Board out of more than £1 million.

Gary Grosberg (44) of Barnhill Avenue, Prestwich, and Francis Jones (61) of Orchard Lane, Leigh, looked shocked when the jury returned their unanimous verdicts on Monday.

Another of solicitor Grosberg's employees, David Levy (67) of Kersal Crag, Salford, was cleared at Liverpool Crown Court.

On Tuesday, Grosberg was sentenced to 15 months' jail but, unusually, Judge David Marshall Evans QC allowed him bail for the next two weeks to get his affairs in order.

The mercy of the court was extended to Jones who was jailed for eight months.

In his summing up of the case, the judge described the welfare department at the firm's Railway Road office in Leigh as "a den of thieves".

Grosberg also had an office at Great Moor Street, Bolton.

The three men had denied conspiring together and with Jones's late wife, Theresa Jones, to defraud the Legal Aid Board over five years to April 1994.

During a ten-week trial the court heard that Grosberg and the Joneses falsely represented that "green form" applications for welfare benefit advice were good and proper.

Mr Peter Openshaw QC, prosecuting, said: "Over a long period of time with the help of other members of staff they systematically and dishonestly defrauded the Legal Aid Board by pretending they had given welfare benefit advice to clients, when they had not, by deliberately misrepresenting the amount of work they had done and the time they had spent.

"They concealed their fraud by the wholesale production of false and misleading files."

The conspirators exploited the system of free meat and butter to those on benefit and had thousands of people unwittingly sign "green forms" retaining a solicitor.

They operated the scam by helping voluntary organisations to distribute the food.

Afterwards thousands of bogus files were manufactured on computer in the welfare department at one of the firm's two offices in Leigh in what approached a factory process and which staff termed "file building", said Mr Openshaw. Neither Jones nor Levy had any legal qualifications but Jones had considerable experience in welfare matters, as had his wife, an active participant in the fraud, which continued to flourish after her sudden death in November 1993.

Police raided the firm's premises in April 1994 and found more than 17,000 completed or partly completed welfare benefit forms involving a total of £1,108,577.

Documents were found relating to another 4,000 claims in the pipeline.

The firm's receipts for welfare benefit advice rose from £8,000 in 1988-89 to £450,000 in 1993-94, in which year Grosberg's drawings from the company were £105,000.

Grosberg and Jones gave evidence denying the charges.

But Levy declined following medical advice about his heart condition.

Where necessary signatures were forged on the fake files which were made to give the appearance of a genuine operation, and to which a whole department was effectively given over.

There was no evidence that any legal advice concerning welfare benefits was given to those in whose names claims were made, said Mr Openshaw.

Levy told police he had forged signatures on green forms on the instruction of Mrs Jones.

He did not think there was anything dishonest with it and he was doing what he was told.

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