A law firm that earned £141 million from a government industrial disease compensation scheme denied yesterday that it had exploited sick miners and their families.

Legal counsel for Jim Beresford, 58, and Doug Smith, 51, the two former senior partners of a firm that handled more than 90,000 damages claims by former miners and their estates, said that there had been nothing wrong in the firm “earning substantial fees”.

Alan Gourgey, QC, said that the miners were as intellectually capable as any other clients and “only a very small minority could be described as sick”. Vibration white finger, a painful condition caused by working with vibrating tools, was not life-threaten-ing and in only one example did the company come across a case in which chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had confined a man to his home.

Mr Gourgey added that the success rate of the firm – Beresfords, of Doncaster, South Yorkshire – in dealing with claims for those who had these chronic lung and hand conditions caused by their work underground had been “higher than expected”.

The two former senior partners face 11 allegations of serious professional misconduct at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. They are accused of conduct unbecoming a solicitor in failing to represent the best interests of their clients, misleading a government minister, breaching referral rules and entering into “sham arrangements”.

Mr Beresford’s personal share of his firm’s profits between 2004 and 2006 was £27.5 million. Thousands of miners received less than £1,000 each.

In addition to the fees it was paid by the Government, Beresfords also deducted, in some cases, a success fee of up to 25 per cent of the damages awarded to its clients.

Mr Gourgey told the tribunal yesterday that success fees were claimed in less than 1 per cent of the coal-health cases handled by Beresfords and the practice was ended in 2002. The money deducted – £938,000 – was later refunded.

The tribunal has been told that the Government paid fixed legal fees to law firms for every successful claim and did not seek to recover its costs when a claim failed.

Mr Gourgey said that when the scheme began in 1999 there had been considerable uncertainty as to how many claims there would be and what proportion would result in an award of damages.

“As matters have turned out, it is undoubtedly the case that the level of claims and the success rates were far higher than expected,” he said, suggesting that Beresfords was being judged “with the benefit of hindsight”.

He said it was a misconception that it was easy for solicitors to take advantage of miners and their families because they were particularly vulnerable.

He added that Mr Beresford and Mr Smith were accused of acting with dishonesty and “conscious impropriety” in their financial dealings with the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and one of its employees but there was “no cogent evidence” to support the allegations, which were “a mixture of speculation or unsound inference”.

The hearing continues.

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