Former Arbroath solicitor takes own life day before £500k embezzlement trial
ByThe Courier Reporter
A former Arbroath solicitor killed himself a day before he faced court accused of embezzling more than half a million pounds from clients including more than £85,000 from dead clients’ estates.
Graeme Herald who was a partner at Herald and Co Solicitors in the Angus town was accused of stealing the cash deposited with him by his clients between October 12 2001 and October 6 2006.
It was alleged he took sums ranging between £2,000 and £90,000 from 14 separate clients.
In total, he was said to have embezzled £570,046.47 from his firm’s clients.
That sum included £85,558.47 from the estates of four dead clients.
Herald, who was 55, and of Hawthornbank Lane, Edinburgh, previously entered a not guilty plea to the embezzlement charge.
He was due back in court on Monday for a further pre-trial hearing but prosecutors asked the case not be called in court, meaning proceedings were at an end.
It then emerged Herald had taken his own life at his home in Edinburgh and was discovered in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Police said there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.
