Quarterly-ish review of the decisions published since July 2026: patterns and themes

There were no published decisions during the week ending 16 October, so I have carried out a review of the decisions the Disciplinary Digest has covered so far.

The decisions counted below are those covered in the editions, not every decision either regulator published, as there is often a delay in publication dates.

The shape of the outcomes

There are 30 SDT judgments covered in the editions in which a respondent faced allegations and the SDT reached a sanction or a dismissal. A joint judgment is counted once. I have not included two restoration applications, a review of a section 43 order, an appeal against a rebuke, a High Court appeal outcome and an earlier judgment mentioned for context. There are 11 Bar decisions, drawn from the BSB register and BTAS reports, and they include two determinations by consent.

Two-thirds of the SDT’s decisions ended with the respondent removed. That figure is a fact about the judgments published, and I would not read it as a rate across the profession, because the cases that reach a published judgment are the ones the SRA has chosen to prosecute and the ones in which the facts were serious enough to warrant it. Within that category the pattern is clear enough. The Bar column is less severe in its distribution, with fines the most common outcome, and the three disbarments each rest on conduct that went to honesty or integrity, or to a criminal conviction.

Theme 1: Dishonesty is not the only route to strike off

Where dishonesty is found, the SDT applies the established position that striking off follows unless exceptional circumstances are shown, and in the judgments I have covered there were none. The personal pressures recorded were real. A solicitor who created a letter to mislead an employer, after being telephoned about an acknowledgment of service nobody could find, had a long list of personal pressures recorded in the statement of agreed facts, among them billing targets, a distant place of work, bereavement and ill health, although the SRA did not agree the mitigation (Syed Suhail Abbas Sibtain, case 12855). The sanction was strike off. The sole director of a firm whose insurance lapsed, who carried on acting, told a client in terms of business that the firm was insured and gave the SRA an account of his dealings with another client that the documents contradicted, met the same result (Andrew Lee, case 12712). The competence at A1 of the Statement of Solicitor Competence requires solicitors to act honestly and with integrity, in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements and the SRA Standards and Regulations, and Principles 4 and 5 of the SRA Principles require the same: to act with honesty and to act with integrity.

The Bar’s equivalent is Core Duty 3 and the competence at 2.2 of the Professional Statement for Barristers, which requires barristers to be honest in their dealings with others and to avoid communicating anything they know or ought to know is untrue, incomplete, inaccurate or likely to be misleading. The BSB register records that a BTASDT disbarred Md Abu Sufian on charges that alleged he knowingly and dishonestly misled the court.

The less comfortable point is that removal is not reserved for dishonesty. Three SDT respondents were struck off in judgments where dishonesty was not alleged. One was a solicitor convicted of sexual assault committed while in practice (Timothy John Luckhurst-Matthews, case 12928). Another sent sexually motivated messages to a barrister instructed by his firm and to a woman he had approached about a role (Michael Peter Alexander, case 12627). The third was a registered foreign lawyer, Abhishek Kumar (case 12884), whose filings cited authorities that did not exist, misquoted real ones or did not support the propositions advanced, after he used generative artificial intelligence. The SDT recorded that “a lawyer is always responsible for the accuracy of his or her output”.

Theme 2: Unsurprisingly, it’s all about the evidence

A good deal of the reasoning of the SDT and BTASDT turns on the absence of evidence. In the artificial intelligence case the absence was the authorities themselves. In the case of a sole practitioner who was also COLP and COFA, the absence was a set of client account records: a lack of compliant reconciliations for a long period, incomplete ledgers, and an unresolved difference of £591,385.40 between stated client liabilities and funds held (John William Cruickshank, case 12922). The solicitor was suspended for nine months, with conditions afterwards.

At the Bar the absence was a record of continuing professional development. John David Hunter was suspended by a BTASDT for three months after charges that he did not undertake CPD in a calendar year and then declared to the BSB that it was up to date. Rajiv Chopra was suspended by a BTASDT for a minimum of four months, and until he provides satisfactory proof of 45 hours of BSB-approved CPD, 20% of it face to face, with three hours on ethics. In a restoration application refused by the SDT, it saw no records, learning logs or other evidence of a structured programme of study or CPD (Raj Rajan Mariaddan, case 12901).

The competences that sit underneath are clear. The Professional Statement at 2.6 requires barristers to practise with adaptability and flexibility, by being self-aware and self-directed, recognising and acting upon the continual need to maintain and develop their knowledge and skills. The Statement of Solicitor Competence at D2 requires solicitors to keep, use and maintain accurate, complete and clear records, and at A2 to maintain the level of competence and legal knowledge needed to practise effectively, taking into account changes in their role and/or practice context and developments in the law. Each exists so that a practitioner can show, rather than assert, that the work was done.

Theme 3: Supervision, and the roles one holds

Supervision appears in the decisions in two forms. The first is supervision a practitioner owes to others. In the judgment against Shezhad Ilyas (case 12822) a principal allocated a road traffic claim to a paralegal with limited experience of small claims, approved correspondence she drafted without checking the file or the court orders, and the claim was eventually struck out. The SDT found the conduct manifestly incompetent and showing a lack of integrity, and, on a separate allegation about information given to the SRA, dishonest. The result was strike off. The competences are A3 of the Statement of Solicitor Competence, working within the limits of their competence and the supervision which they need, and D1, which requires solicitors to initiate, plan, prioritise and manage work activities and projects so that they are completed efficiently, on time and to an appropriate standard, both in relation to their own work and work that they lead or supervise. C3 requires solicitors to establish and maintain effective and professional relations with other people, and C3c specifically requires them to supervise the work of others effectively.

The second form is the supervision a practitioner lacks. Two of the respondents already mentioned held every regulatory role in a small firm, and the judgment on the uninsured firm records no external check on any of them. A COFA who signed four insurance proposal forms that wrongly answered the question about qualified accountant’s reports was reprimanded, restricted from acting as COFA for a minimum of 12 months and required to complete an SRA-approved COFA training course before taking the role again (Gordon Mcpherson Keir, case 12807). The SRA withdrew the allegations of dishonesty and misleading insurers, and the SDT did not find a lack of integrity proved. That disposal is built around remediation, and it is the kind that the profession sees less often than it should.

Theme 4: The silence that compounds

Competence 2.5 of the Professional Statement requires barristers to adopt a reflective approach to their work, enabling them to correct errors and admit if they have made mistakes, and A3b of the Statement of Solicitor Competence requires solicitors to recognise when they have made mistakes or are experiencing difficulties and to take appropriate action. The decisions show what happens in the interval between the first problem and the first honest word about it.

A solicitor sought to be called to the Bar while under SRA investigation and after conditions had been imposed on his practising certificate. He told neither the BSB nor the body responsible for his call, and was struck off the Roll by the SDT (Zeeshan Saqib Mian, case 12824). After call he was subject to rule C65.3 of the BSB Handbook, which required him to report the conditions and the continuing regulatory enquiries, and the SDT found that his failure to do so was dishonest. The sole practitioner in the reconciliation case was held by the SDT to be culpable for failing to seek help when it was clearly necessary, his responsibilities being greater as an experienced sole manager, COLP and COFA. In the case of Ryan Sean Jack Williams (case 12657), a partner who made unwanted comments and touched colleagues at a firm party was found by the SDT to be someone who ought to have taken steps, and assumed greater personal responsibility, to ensure that his conduct was not repeated at the next firm event. The gap between the two events was the interval in which he could have acted.

The same pattern appears from a different angle in a case where dishonesty was not found. A senior associate communicated with a client in terms that stated or clearly implied that a psychiatric report had not been received, and explained that he wished to protect the client from receiving a sensitive report without accompanying advice (Nicholas Nikola Stojanovic, case 12904). The SDT assessed culpability and harm as medium and imposed a fine of £15,000. My reading is that a good motive can bear on whether conduct is dishonest, but it does not change what the client was told.

Theme 5: Conduct beyond the file

A recurring feature of the Bar decisions in particular is that the conduct charged has little to do with the quality of legal advice. Core Duty 5, the duty not to behave in a way likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in the barrister or the profession, carries a surprising share of the findings. Chandra Sekar was fined £1,500, with costs of £6,188.40, which are more than four times the fine, for conduct towards a judge in the course of a trial. Johanna Morris admitted her charge and was reprimanded and fined £3,000 over offensive remarks about a complainant, made to a police officer in conference before a bail hearing. Nicholas Gerard Hugh Barnes was fined £18,000 over late filing of self-assessment tax returns and failure to pay the liabilities outstanding. Alexander Paul Riddiford was fined £2,500 on a determination by consent after a drink-drive conviction, within the conviction group of the BTAS Sanctions Guidance. Rasib Ghaffar was disbarred after a conviction at a contested trial for conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

The SDT’s equivalent runs through Principles 2, 5 and 6 of the SRA Principles and paragraphs 1.1 and 1.5 of the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors etc. The partner suspended for 12 months over conduct at two firm social events is the clearest example, the SDT having found that the touching of colleagues was sexually motivated. The competence mapping sits at A1a (recognising ethical issues and exercising effective judgment in addressing them), C3a (treating others with courtesy and respect) and A3b (recognising when they have made mistakes or are experiencing difficulties and taking appropriate action). The dismissal of every allegation against a duty solicitor over remarks to two police officers (Anthony David Davis, case 12867) is a useful counterweight. Inappropriate behaviour, on its own, is not automatically misconduct, and the SDT draws the line carefully.

Theme 6: Two regulators, one career

Two practitioners called for attention to the boundary between the regulators. Waheed Ur Rehman Mian was suspended for six months by the SDT after all allegations were proved (case 12646), and a BTASDT later ordered that the BSB not issue him a practising certificate for nine months. The order of events was reversed for Zeeshan Saqib Mian (Theme 4), who was disbarred by a BTASDT in 2022 before the SDT struck him off the Roll. They are different people who share a surname. Each shows that qualification in one branch of the profession does not stop the other regulator acting, and that reporting duties follow a practitioner across the boundary.

Theme 7: Reasoning, remediation and review

The decisions are also a record of how soundly findings are reasoned. Two SDT judgments dismissed every allegation. In the first, a solicitor of long standing faced allegations that he failed to comply with court directions in a civil claim, failed to take adequate action to set aside a default judgment against his client and did not tell her, and then produced file notes giving a misleading impression of what he knew (Richard Alexander Dobson, case 12783), and the SDT found none of it proved. The second concerned a duty solicitor who made a series of remarks to two police officers at a police station (Anthony David Davis, case 12867). The SDT found that some of the remarks were not inappropriate at all and that the rest, although inappropriate, did not amount to professional misconduct. In Hurst v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2026] EWHC 85 (Admin), the High Court allowed an appeal against an SDT finding that had attracted a fine of £50,000, holding that the decision was “insufficiently analysed and reasoned, vitiated by misdirection and error of law, and unfair”. The SDT’s own published note on its case against Ashley Hurst (case 12612) records that the allegation was then dismissed by consent.

Remediation shaped outcomes where it was present and where the conduct allowed. The clearest example is the COFA who signed four insurance proposal forms that wrongly answered the question about qualified accountant’s reports (Gordon Mcpherson Keir, case 12807). The SRA withdrew its allegations of dishonesty and of misleading insurers, and the SDT imposed a reprimand, a bar on acting as COFA for a minimum of 12 months and a requirement to complete an SRA-approved COFA training course before taking the role again. At the Bar, Rajiv Chopra’s suspension for a minimum of four months is tied to training as well as to time: it continues until he provides satisfactory proof of 45 hours of BSB-approved CPD, at least three of them on ethics. The SDT recorded insight, remorse and steps taken to remediate as mitigation for the senior associate who communicated with a client in terms that stated or implied that a psychiatric report had not been received (Nicholas Nikola Stojanovic, case 12904), and fined him £15,000. None of this softens the cases where dishonesty was found.

Closing thoughts

Read across 15 weeks, the decisions appear to say less about practitioners who set out to do wrong than about the ordinary conditions in which things go wrong: a record not kept, a mistake not mentioned, a role held alone, a pressure carried silently. The competence statements are written for those moments. Where practitioners are carrying that kind of pressure, LawCare offers a free and confidential helpline on 0800 279 6888.

A lesson these decisions teach: what a practitioner can show, say and record at the first moment it matters will do more to protect clients and practitioners alike than anything a tribunal later has to find.

Beyond Competence Limited, for information and educational purposes only. This digest does not constitute legal advice.