We Name and Shame the Guilty Parties

Lester Aldridge - Solicitors

This company may be a disgrace to the legal profession

Our correspondent writes ...

In my time, I have met enough dishonest solicitors to make me distrust most members of what should be a very honourable profession.

My encounters with Lester Aldridge have been generally unpleasant and I have to say their executives are staggeringly arrogant, apparently believing they are above criticism purely because (in their words) they are a company of solicitors. Like that's an excuse! Quite a few cabinet ministers are also solicitors and I don't trust them either.

But Lester Alsridge is a company that won't let the truth get in the way of additional earning potential if they believe someone is gullible enough to succumb to their threats.

Well, sorry guys, but I fight back. You make false accusations about me and you can rest assured that I will go for the jugular (metaphorically-speaking).

To understand this story, you first need to read the background information on the Toyota Financial Services page.

The letter I received accused me of failing to pay two instalments of Ł100 each yet no payments were outstanding. After a telephone conversation with the writer of the letter - *Angie Loveless of Lester Aldridge - I looked on their website and found the name of one of the partners, Wayne Spolander. I sent him this email on 28th November 2005.

Andrew Corke (pictured left), the senior partner of the Fast Track division of Lester Aldridge, replied. His email, followed by my response and his further response can be read here.

All the emails, and the one I sent to the CEO of Toyota which was copied to Andrew Corke, were read by the recipients but none of them actually replied. Nor did they carry out their threats to repossess the vehicle. Nor did they apologise when they realised they were wrong.

I suspect they never will.

Editorial comment:

Andrew John Corke is an interesting character. A company director's report shows that he is not only a solicitor but also a minister of religion who holds a directorship with The Lifesaver Trust. Our research indicates he may be the same Reverend Andrew Corke who preaches at St Barnabus Church, Bearwood, Wimborne which coincidentally is near Mr Corke's home at Silverwood Close, Wimborne, Dorset.

In his legal role, he has contributed to credit control documents produced for the Invest Northern Ireland organisation and advised on suing in a document produced by Business Link.

As Chairman of Lester Aldridge FastTrack, he has given presentations about "Collecting Debt with Sensitivity" for the Chartered Institute of Housing to local municipalities including Torbay where he was assisted by Karen Savage, CEO of Lester Aldridge FastTrack and Louis Greenblatt, a consultant to Lester Aldridge FastTrack.

And this is where it gets interesting. In his presentation Mr Corke mentions things like:

prohibiting unfair business practises (presumably that does not include unwarranted harassment?)
following Office of Fair Trading (OFT) guidelines (which specifically preclude harassment)
not failing to investigate or provide proper details/records when a debt is queried or disputed (What a joke!)

So it appears Mr Corke does not practise what he preaches. It also appears he does not let his religious convictions get in the way of any temptation in his job to act unscrupulously, make false allegations, or persecute people unnecessarily. The fact is, he works for a firm of parasites who compound the problems of less unfortunate people and he presumably does this for a very handsome salary. The Lord's teachings seemingly do not figure in the Lester Aldridge handbook so we have to assume that the only beneficiaries of Mr Cooke's more humane side may be the members of his congregation in the Lantern Church circuit.

And there's More scandal...

Since we asked for more information about Lester Aldridge from others who had been on the receiving end of their bad practises, we have been contacted by several people. There are those, it seems, who believe certain senior employees at Lester Aldridge have their sticky little fingers in some very dirty pies. This mostly affects the good people of Dorset who, via their rates, contribute thousands of pounds to the Lester Aldridge coffers to bring actions that are totally unwarranted.

But, hey, that's not our direct problem You can read it for yourself if you visit http://bdweb8780.bluedomino.com/policeinefficiency.com/lesteraldridge.html. And they get a good few mentions on: www.solicitorsfromhell.co.uk along with many other legal practises.

* We never seem to get any response from the people we name and shame. They don't try to defend themselves so presumably they think things will blow over if they maintain a low profile. But we did get an approach about Angie Loveless. Apparently she left Lester Aldridge to join another legal firm - one which seems to employ a considerable number of ex-Lester Aldridge staff. The email came from one of Ms Loveless' new colleagues who asked to remain anonymous. She asked us to either remove Ms Loveless' name from the website or alternatively replace the genuine information in our report with a fraudulent imitation. As Ms Loveless never conceded her mistake and never apologised for her error, we refused. And we certainly will not participate in a cover-up. We spend most of our time exposing those who try to cover up their misdeeds.

Readers' Comments

I was with Lester Aldridge 1998/2004 and they were incompetent, negligent and failed to release my file to avoid further action. Totally useless!!

Issued "Solicitor instructions to Barrister" without my knowledge or authority and failed to obtain documents essential for Opinion. Mr Shaw (Barrister) advised, "I cannot make opinion without the documents." We are talking here of a divorce in which no financial statements were obtained to determine family wealth for division and an incomplete, misleading copy file was obviously edited to mislead. What a surprise when his Opinion was adverse. Such nonsense by disgraceful lawyers. JJ, Poole

I chanced upon your website when I googled Lester Aldridge. They have recently tried to force me into paying them thousands of pounds, claiming I owed the money personally when in fact it was debt incurred five years ago when a Company that I was a director of failed.
They were a nasty unpleasant bunch who tried various threats. Fortunately not only did I not succumb to their threats but the case they connoted against me was so clearly dishonest that the Judge saw through it and dismissed the case. The case files were quite clearly doctored, however what does concern me is the distress they could cause to anyone who lacks our determination.
They are a nasty bunch who should be investigated and the judge hinted as much when he stated that the files they submitted caused him serious concern.
Who are they exactly ?? Do they purchase old debt from companies for peanuts then try to exhort money in any way they can??
JS, Gloucester

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