Millionaire lawyer who concocted web of lies to escape drink-driving charge collapses in dock as he’s found guilty



A millionaire lawyer who pretended he had been kidnapped to escape a drink-driving charge collapsed in the dock today after a judge warned him he faces jail.

Top solicitor Francis Bridgeman, 43, was found guilty of perverting the court of justice for spinning a web of lies to detectives after drunkenly crashing his £50,000 Range Rover Sport into a telegraph pole.

Police launched a kidnap investigation after the Oxford-educated school governor claimed armed men had stolen the luxury car at knifepoint before taking him away in another vehicle.

Francis Bridgeman, a top city lawyer, lied to police telling him he had been kidnapped to escape a drink-driving charge after crashing his car

But a jury of six men and six women took just two hours to decide the bizarre tale was an elaborate ruse to escape a drink-driving charge after a five-day trial at Brighton Crown Court.

As Judge Guy Anthony told him he faces a likely jail sentence, Bridgeman collapsed in the dock and paramedics were called to the court.

He resigned from leading London law firm Macfarlanes in December and is a former partner of Allen and Overy, specialising in banking and corporate law, as well as a governor of The Skinner’s School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

The City lawyer drove his car off the road on April 6 last year on his way home to the Grade-II listed, £1.25 million home he shares with his wife Maggie in Wadhurst, East Sussex.

The car snapped a telegraph pole in half and ended up 80 metres away in a field.



Mr Bridgeman's £1.25 million home in Bewl Water, East Sussex, where they keep llamas as a hobby. Mr Bridgeman is a governor of The Skinner's School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Head hung: Francis Bridgeman allegedly told police an armed gang attacked him on his way home from work

But instead of waiting for police to arrive, Bridgeman set off on foot through the countryside for three hours to avoid an alcohol breath test.



When detectives eventually visited his home and found he was over the limit, he said he had been kidnapped and claimed his attackers must have crashed the car.



He said: 'I felt an arm around my throat with what felt like a knife and heard a voice that said ‘Keep driving.’ “I was almost in tears and didn’t know what to do.'

However, Bridgeman’s story unravelled when CCTV footage showed him weaving drunkenly along a train platform after a post-work pub binge, where he drank five pints of Guinness with a friend.



Forensic officers also found his DNA on the Range Rover’s airbag, showing he must have been driving the car when it crashed.



Prosecuting, Richard Barton said: ‘The sad truth is you started lying in order to get out of a possible drink driving offence.



‘You thought that with your experience as a lawyer you would be able to talk your way out of trouble.



‘That lie got bigger and bigger as you went on. Like jumping into a bramble bush, it got harder to get out of it the more you struggled.



‘Valuable police time and public expense was wasted as officers had to investigate the allegations the defendant had made about being kidnapped even though they were a complete fiction.’

