A CORONER stole more than £185,000 from the estates of dead clients at his solicitor's practice, a court was told.

Jeremy David Cave, who was a North Yorkshire coroner, grossly overcharged clients, asking up to four times more than a reasonable fee, said Andrew Wheeler, prosecuting.

Mr Cave, 53, of The Grange, Balk, near Thirsk, denies ten counts of theft between 1990 and 2000. Teesside Crown Court was told last week that in the early Nineties, Mr Cave was sole partner in a Thirsk solicitor's practice specialising in wills, but had abused his position of trust by deliberately overcharging.

Mr Wheeler said charges for dealing with the ten estates should have totalled £125,000, but the bill was £312,000. After complaints, a representative of the Law Society's Office of Supervision investigated Mr Cave's practice.

It was concluded there had been gross and inexplicable overcharging and the practice was closed down in July 2000 when a police inquiry began.

Mr Wheeler said Mr Cave must have known his actions amounted to theft. He said the overcharging on the estates ranged from an alleged £3,160 to £88,420. Thirsk resident Ethel Jackson, who died in 1990, aged 89, left more than £858,000 after tax. One of her executors found her estate had not been settled four years later and discovered the bill stood at almost £87,000.

The trial continues.