A former Skipton coroner who stole almost £155,000 from the estate of dead clients at his solicitor practice was today jailed for three and a half years.

Jeremy Cave, 53, was found guilty of six counts of theft between 1990 and 2000.

He took money from the accounts of dead clients from his practice where he was the sole practitioner in the market town of Thirsk, North Yorkshire.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court convicted him of six counts of theft and found him not guilty of a further count. The jurors continued to deliberate on a further three theft charges worth a total of £20,000 but were discharged when they were unable to reach verdicts.

The judge told the defendant as he passed sentence: "You and your family suffer disgrace as a consequence of your actions, your dishonesty, nobody else's. You besmirched the good name of this profession."

During the trial which lasted almost three months, the jury was told Cave, of The Grange, Balk, Thirsk, "grossly overcharged" clients.

Andrew Wheeler, prosecuting, said the solicitor would not agree fees and sometimes did not send a bill. Detectives calculated the amount Cave stole by bringing in two independent law costs draughtsmen to give a generous estimate of the true cost of the work done.

He was convicted of stealing a total of £154,918 from six separate estates.

He was not ordered to pay compensation as the Law Society had repaid his clients what he stole and the organisation was now looking to take civil action against the defendant.

Eric Elliott, defending, told the judge today: "Clearly this man has reached a nadir, his humiliation is total and complete."

Cave was appointed North Yorkshire's western area coroner in August 1997 and held the post until he was suspended in June 2001.