Solicitor jailed for stealing from dead clients

A solicitor has been jailed for stealing £43,450 left by dead clients in their wills.

Alan Benstock, a former deputy coroner, used the money to fund his daughter’s private education, cover family medical bills and pay the mortgage on his home in Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

The 51-year-old admitted nine charges of theft over a four-month period in 2006.

He had set up a charitable trust into which he paid the money from three dead clients’ wills. He did not register the trust with the Charity Commission and kept it secret from colleagues.