A TOP city law firm was rapped after it used £100,000 of miners’ compensation cash to pay a middleman who passed on their claims.

Silverbeck Rymer, which is based in Brunswick Business Park, admitted it failed to act in the best interests of the hundreds of miners it represented by doing so.

The firm now faces repaying the money to the miners.

Silverbeck Rymer equity partners James and Charles Rymer were inspected by the Law Society, which passed a file to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

The partners could have been hauled in front of a disciplinary tribunal, but opted to sign an agreement with the SRA admitting their wrongdoing.

They have also agreed the wording of a letter being sent to their former clients explaining the situation.

Silverbeck represented 333 miners, winning 189 claims and a total compensation pot of £1.4m. But from that, it deducted £117,049 to pay referral firm Industrial Disease Compensation Ltd.

That was in breach of Solicitors’ Practice Rules.

The miners were mainly suffering from lung disease brought on by coal dust and debilitating nerve damage caused by holding machinery, known as vibration white finger.