A RISCA solicitor avoided a jail sentence yesterday after he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Colin Harrison, 65 of Newpark Road, was a “pillar of the community,” a senior partner in a well-known firm of solicitors and spent years fundraising and carrying out charity work both at home and abroad.

But he faced a custodial sentence after attempting to transfer the management of a property to a letting agents just hours after a tenant was found dead on November 11, 2009.

He was found guilty after a trial at Cardiff Crown Court last month.

Jurors heard how Gwent Police were called to 6 Llanarth Square, Risca – a property belonging to Harrison and his business partner – at around 3pm, where they found the tenant, Christopher Tucker, dead.

Officers initially believed Mr Tucker died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but a post-mortem examination showed he died from a heart attack.

The court was told Harrison contacted letting agents William Parkman and Daughters, asking what the penalty for not having a gas certificate was and asked if he could write a letter transferring management of the Llanarth Square property to the agents.

He then faxed a letter, backdated to November 9, to the agents, as well as hand-delivering a copy.

Defence barrister Peter Davies submitted references from church ministers, a QC and from the Joint Committee for Ethnic Minority Wales to Judge Rhys Rowlands, highlighting his charity and community work.

A pre-sentencing report described Harrison as a “pillar of society”.

Mr Davies said Harrison would “carry to his grave the indignity of his conviction”

after the media coverage of the case and the fact that he is so well known and he has had to live under the cloak of this case since 2009.

Harrison, a senior partner in Granville-West Chivers and Morgan Solicitors, who worked throughout Gwent during his career, resigned his job and is waiting to be struck off by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Mr Davies urged the judge to consider the exceptional circumstances that Harrison’s actions were shortlived, they did not result in anyone being arrested and it has ended his career as a solicitor.

At Newport Crown Court yesterday, Judge Rhys Rowlands accepted that Harrison acted in a state of panic when he found out about the death.

Despite the fact that this offence would normally lead to a term of imprisonment, he was mindful of the representations made of his previously exemplary character and gave him a six months prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and a 200-hour unpaid work requirement.

He was also fined £1,000 and ordered to pay £3,500 costs and £15 victim surcharge.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Shame is a penalty itself

THE outcome of the court case involving solicitor Colin Harrison in our view illustrates the important part the Press can play in the justice system.

Harrison was initially warned he could face jail for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

But, in part because of the shame and indignity he suffered at conviction and because of the media coverage of the case, he was instead given a suspended sentence.

Judge Rhys Rowlands accepted the arguments of defence barrister Peter Davies, who said that there were exceptional circumstances surrounding his client’s case.

Not least that he had lost his job, his reputation and had suffered the indignity and shame of conviction and the coverage of it.

We tend to agree that in this case, a jail sentence was not necessary.

Harrison has lost his reputation and to a man like this, it is a massive part of the punishment.

Some people may find it unpalatable that a loss of reputation and feeling of shame enables Harrison to avoid prison.

The alternative view is that – because of the particular circumstances of the case and the fact that Harrison was of previous exemplary character and a pillar of the community – his conviction and the reporting of it was a heavy punishment.

We are of the firm belief that prison sentences are deserved by serious criminals and we would not agree with plans for early release of violent offenders of any description.

But given the current overcrowding of our prisons, we feel the decision not to jail Harrison was understandable.