A FIRM of solicitors that handled health claims by former miners has offered to pay its clients every penny deducted from their compensation by a miners’ union that is under police investigation.

The decision by Hopkins Solicitors, which could cost the firm up to £100,000, comes after a story in The Times revealing a fraud-squad inquiry into the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM). The UDM’s finances are being looked at by fraud officers as part of an inquiry into how the union and senior officials benefited financially from a scheme designed to compensate miners for industrial diseases.

The fees, of between £50 and £500 plus VAT, were charged to every non-member of the union. Fees for claims processed by Hopkins, and other solicitors’ practices, were forwarded to the union as a charge for the UDM handling of the initial compensation claims. The fees helped to boost the union’s pre-tax profits, which have been £6.3 million since 1999.

The unexpected move by Hopkins was welcomed last night by John Mann, the MP who has waged a lengthy campaign against the UDM’s charges. “This is the first step towards restoring public confidence in the solicitors’ profession. Other firms must now do the decent thing and follow the lead set by Hopkins,” he said.

John Bates, a partner at the Nottinghamshire firm, said he was concerned by suggestions that payments linked to UDM claims “may not have been used for their original purpose of assisting elderly and sick miners suffering from workrelated disease. We regard this as a client-care issue and, indeed, a moral issue,” he said.

The Times revealed last Tuesday that detectives were investigating the financial relationship between a solicitors’ firm, Beresfords, based in Doncaster, and two companies associated with the UDM.

Two days later Mick Stevens, the union’s vice-president, and Clare Walker, the head of claims at Vendside, a claims-handling company wholly owned by the UDM, announced they were standing down from their posts until police inquiries were completed.

Since 1999 solicitors’ firms across Britain have earned £530 million in legal costs, paid by the Department of Trade and Industry, for settling claims by miners for chronic lung diseases and vibration white finger, a crippling hand condition.

The UDM and Vendside, which signed a separate agreement with the DTI in 1999, have been paid £19 million for claims settled in-house. They also passed more than 10,000 claims to a group of solicitors’ practices, which has received £25 million from the DTI.

Some solicitors’ firms ask for authorisation to deduct the fee from compensation. Others ask miners to send a cheque, made payable to Vendside, when the claim has been settled.

Hopkins, which has offices in Mansfield and Nottingham, has represented miners since before the Second World War. It acted for the Nottinghamshire branch of the National Union of Mineworkers and continued to represent the UDM when it split from the NUM during the 1984-85 coalminers’ strike. The firm’s relationship with the UDM ended in early 1998.

On Friday evening more than three-hundred people attended a public meeting in the Nottinghamshire mining village of Harworth, where they were addressed by Mr Mann and offered the chance to join a legal action against the UDM and Vendside. More than fifty have signed up to the action, which will be led by the City solicitors Greene Wood & McLean, who will seek to force repayment of the deductions.

Anyone with information relevant to the criminal inquiry is asked to contact South Yorkshire Police’s economic crime unit on 0114-264 0562.

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