Taxi: Solicitor had no recollection of his actions
A male ex-partner at City giant Freshfields who groped a female associate after a team Christmas party has been suspended from practice for two years.
Nicholas Tristan Williams resigned from the firm as a result of his conduct, just a few months after making partner.
He was so drunk when it happened that he said he had no recollection of what he had done.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) approved a statement of agreed facts and outcome reached between the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Mr Williams, saying the suspension “accurately reflected the serious nature” of his misconduct.
Mr Williams, 44 this year, qualified in 2006 and at the time was a dispute resolution partner at Freshfields.
In December 2017, he and the associate, ‘Person Z’, attended a Christmas party for their sub-team held at the home of another partner.
Person Z attempted to escort him home in the early hours of the morning as he “had become so intoxicated that he could barely stand up and, as a friend and colleague, Person Z felt she ought to try to help him”, the SDT heard.
In a taxi to his home, Mr Williams touched Person Z’s breast over her clothes, and then tried to do so again, and also put his hand up her skirt as they reached their destination.
He leaned over and then fell on Person Z, who responded “No, absolutely not”, told him to get off and pushed him backwards.
“Person Z repeatedly asked the respondent where he lived and told him she just wanted to get home.
“He then staggered over to the other side of the street and slumped over and laid down on some cardboard on the floor. Person Z was worried that he could be sick and choke and die, and asked him to get up.”
When he did, he fell against Person Z, pinning her against a wall and groping her again, while trying to kiss her as well.
As Mr Williams was unable to tell her where she lived, she called a cab to take them back to her house, where her partner was.
On arriving there, Mr Williams “vomited all over himself, on a tree and on her shoes”. Person Z and her partner offered to let him stay the night, but he wanted to go home and eventually Person Z took him there in another taxi.
In mitigation, Mr Williams said that, given he had no memory of what occurred, he had “pragmatically accepted the allegations on the basis of Person Z’s account of events, bearing in mind the standard of proof in the tribunal is the balance of probabilities”.
He insisted the behaviour were “so out of character that [he] still finds it difficult to believe that they occurred as described” – he had up to this point “an unblemished and successful career”.
Mr Williams did not offer any explanation or excuse for why he became so drunk, and said he regretted that his conduct was not brought to his attention at the time “such that he could have offered an abject apology and sought to obtain Person Z’s forgiveness”.
He accepted that he did not treat Person Z with the respect which she deserved “and for that he is truly sorry”.
Mr Williams said too that he has “already paid a very heavy price”, resigning from Freshfields and not practising since.
The mitigation added: “The very lengthy and unexplained delay on the part of the SRA in progressing and finalising its four-year-long investigation has inevitably taken a major toll on him.”
As well as suspending him for two years, the SDT ordered Mr Williams to pay costs agreed at £66,000.
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