Police station: Representative’s conduct pre-dated her accreditation
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has upheld a decision by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to ban a police station representative convicted of a harassment offence from working for law firms.
Counsel for Teresa Anderson said the order imposed on her under section 43 of the Solicitors Act 1974 was “unnecessary and disproportionate”, particularly because the Legal Aid Agency was “aware of the conviction and content for her to continue as a police station representative”.
The tribunal heard that Ms Anderson was fined after being convicted in May 2024 of harassment of her former husband. An SRA adjudicator imposed a section 43 order on her in January this year; this means she cannot work for an SRA-regulated firm without its permission.
The SDT accepted that the offence was “not at the highest end of the criminal spectrum and that the sentence imposed was a fine rather than a custodial or community sentence”.
But the conviction “arose from a course of conduct over a lengthy period”, from March 2020 to August 2022, and “involved more than one form of behaviour, including emails, social media posts, and use of the victim’s address on personal financial accounts”.
The SDT did not accept counsel for Ms Anderson’s argument that insight and remorse were irrelevant to assessing the seriousness of the misconduct, or that they could only be considered as matters of mitigation.
The SRA was “entitled to consider what Ms Anderson’s response to the conviction revealed about her judgement, reflection, and future risk”.
The tribunal acknowledged that Ms Anderson’s conduct arose “in the context of an acrimonious marital breakdown”, that she “relied on her personal circumstances and mental health at the material time, and that the conduct pre-dated her accreditation and work as a police station representative”.
Nor did her conduct involve dishonesty, misuse of client money, violence towards clients, or misconduct in legal practice.
However, the SRA “had regard to those matters and was entitled to conclude that they did not outweigh the regulatory concerns arising from the conviction”.
Ms Anderson applied for an internal review of the adjudicator’s decision in February this year, which was dismissed the following month.
She responded by lodging an application for review of the adjudicator’s decision in April 2026.
The SRA opposed the application. Counsel for the SRA argued that the indefinite nature of the order did not make it disproportionate, because it would remain in force only until it was appropriate to revoke it.
“Ms Anderson could apply for approval to work under suitable conditions and, in due course, apply for revocation if the order was no longer necessary.”
The tribunal said the conduct was “not properly to be regarded as irrelevant to legal practice merely because it arose in a personal context. It had resulted in a criminal conviction for harassment following a prolonged course of conduct”.
The order was “protective rather than punitive”, and did not permanently prevent Ms Anderson from working in legal practice.
The fact that the order created “an additional hurdle” for her did not make it disproportionate.
Ms Anderson’s application was dismissed and she was ordered to pay £3,400 in costs.
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