A LAWYER from Highgate has been kicked out of the profession after he blew more than £200,000 of his firm's cash on strippers

A LAWYER from Highgate has been kicked out of the profession after he blew more than £200,000 of his firm's cash on strippers.

Divorced father of three Paul Saffron, 43, from Stanhope Road, raided the accounts of top law firm Radcliffes Le Brasseur over more than three years. He spent most of the cash on lap dancers in clubs across London.

Colleagues at the 150-year-old law firm called in the police when they discovered a £104,000 hole in the accounts.

Saffron insisted he was clinically depressed and had only spent the money quickly so he would have no alternative but to kill himself out of shame when he was discovered.

But last Thursday, the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal ignored his pleas to be allowed to stay in the profession.

Speaking at the tribunal, Saffron said: "I didn't feel strong enough to proceed immediately to suicide. I felt I had to force myself into that action and leave myself with no alternative."

Last year the lawyer was jailed for 12 months after he admitted 38 charges of theft from May 2003 to September 2006.

Saffron's lawyer Andrew Hopper QC said his client was depressed and wanted to die.

During the trial it emerged the money had been taken from dormant client ledgers and transferred into bank accounts held by the lawyer.

Hilary Morris, for the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority, said: "Whatever the motive may have been is of little concern to these proceedings. You are a ruined man."

He was also sued by his former employers in the High Court, where he was ordered to pay costs of £1,398.