Even before his colleagues reported Marcus Nickson in 2012, alarm bells were ringing.

The News & Star has learned of an official complaint about Nickson lodged in April, 2008, when he was accused of misconduct by Carlisle man Rod Mackay, who was deeply unhappy with how the lawyer dealt with his wife’s case.

Lorraine Mackay had trusted Nickson to handle her medical negligence claim.

In June, 2008, within days of receiving the Mackay’s complaint, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) rejected it, despite Mr Mackay saying officials did not properly examine the documents provided as evidence.

However, three years later, in 2011 an SRA adjudicator found Nickson guilty of professional misconduct on three counts: providing poor service; failing to act in the best interests of Mrs Mackay; and seeking to take unfair of advantage of Mr Mackay.

Nickson did this by issuing a claim at his place of work to embarrass him professionally. The SRA ruling concluded Nickson’s misconduct was an “isolated” incident.

During the protracted investigation of how the SRA handled the Mackay's’ complaint, the Legal Services Ombudsman was twice critical of the investigation.

“Marcus Nickson completely messed up the costs in my wife’s case to the point where she could not do anything,” said Mr Mackay, 55. “His charges were chaotic.

“But the SRA repeatedly refused to say he was dishonest. The point is that the SRA was being prompted all the time about this man’s behaviour and they ignored it.

“They went out of their way to exonerate him.”

A barrister who looked at Mrs Mackay’s case concluded that Nickson’s handling of it had included serious and persistent breaches of the solicitor’s costs rules, and was “tainted by illegality”. Despite this, it was not until July, 2016, that Nickson was struck off.

An SRA disciplinary tribunal found he improperly took £530,000 in “loans” from client accounts to bankroll KJ Commons and Co, which closed down two years earlier.

He had granted himself unsecured and indefinite “loans” by taking the money from damages payouts which were won by clients who successfully sued, the tribunal ruled.

An SRA spokesman said: “The concerns reported to us are often complex and involve careful and detailed investigation.

“Our priority is public protection and in this instance we liaised closely with the partners at KJ Commons & Co to protect the interests of clients throughout our work on the case.”