North's Law Society reputation 'damaged' by chief's character reference for sex offender
By Claudia Savage, Press Association
The president of the Law Society of Northern Ireland has said its reputation has “been damaged” by its chief executive giving a character reference to a man convicted of historical sexual offences.
However, Mark Borland said chief executive David Lavery still has his “full support” after he was urged to resign for providing the reference for his cousin William Lloyd-Lavery.
The 77-year-old, of Richmond Avenue in Lisburn, was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of six counts of indecent assault at a school he taught at in the 1970s.
Abuse survivor Nicola Bannon, one of four women indecently assaulted by their former schoolteacher at a Belfast school, called for Lavery to step down .
A special general meeting of the law society is scheduled for a vote of confidence in relation to Lavery’s position.
Borland said the organisation had “mishandled the communication of the matter”.
He told BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “We have to separate the two issues – dealing with the employment matter itself, where I will happily go through all the detail, we’re very satisfied that that’s independent and robust – but the communication of this matter with our members has not been good enough.
“It is not up to the standards to which we hold others and to which we need to hold ourselves.”
He added: “I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to say that we have been brought into disrepute, I would say that the reputation of the Law Society of Northern Ireland has been damaged by this and by our handling of this.
“Not by the process that I’ve already outlined, which I think is robust, fair and independent, but in how we have communicated it, how we have failed to be open and transparent about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, and that we have failed to properly express how much we are concerned by the harm that we have done to the victims and survivors in this case.”
Borland extended his apologies to Bannon “for any hurt that we have caused to her or others by anything we have said, done or failed to say or do”.
“We are solicitors, we are used to keeping matters confidential that we hear from clients, we are used to keeping matters confidential where we regulate other solicitors, it is not maybe our natural state to be open, honest and transparent,” he said.
“And on that one, we’re wrong, and we need to get it right and get it better because what we have done has clearly caused frustration and hurt.”
He said Lavery “has my support to continue as the chief executive of the Law Society of Northern Ireland and to move us forward”.
He added: “David has apologised to everyone about this matter.
“He has issued a sincere apology to the society for his serious error in giving this. Everyone within the Law Society acknowledges that our reputation has been harmed by this.
“Reputation is not something we demand or can tell people that you need to respect, we need to go back out and earn the respect and the reputation that we would like to have as the definitive voice of the solicitor’s profession and a strong voice on justice in Northern Ireland.”
