[1]Payments: Misconduct began with £10
A criminal defence solicitor who asked a client to pay his law firm’s fees into his personal bank account has been struck off for dishonesty.
Mandeep Sunny Singh Thandi, a solicitor and a director at Kenneth M Barrow & Co in County Durham, admitted receiving £5,510 from a client in a series of payments between 13 November 2023 and 14 February 2024.
Mr Thandi admitted receiving the money from the client, after giving them his own bank details and not the firm’s.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) heard that Mr Thandi, who qualified in 2014, did not open a file for this client, nor did he transfer the money that the client paid him into the firm’s account.
Mr Thandi, 40, was described as an “experienced, senior solicitor” and admitted his behaviour was dishonest.
The tribunal was told that Mr Thandi asked his client to make four payments over the four-month period, with the amounts increasing each time, from £10, to £1,000 and then £2,000, before a final £2,500.
The client thought the money would go to the law firm to pay her legal fees.
Mr Thandi first met the client in October 2023. After confirming that she was not eligible for legal aid, the solicitor agreed a fee of £6,000.
However, Mr Thandi did not open a file on the firm’s case management or finance systems, which was standard practice when the firm was instructed by a new client.
A statement of agreed facts and outcome produced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and approved by the SDT, said this showed Mr Thandi deliberately kept the instructions “off the books”.
When the client asked Mr Thandi to provide the firm with her bank details, he instead provided her with his own.
To try to hide his actions, in February 2024 Mr Thandi paid £1,200 to the client’s counsel, using the funds she had paid him. This left him with £4,310 of the client’s money, which he kept for himself.
Though the barrister was unaware of Mr Thandi’s actions, by now the client was not and she instructed another solicitor, who contacted the eponymous Kenneth Barrow to inform him about the payments.
When Mr Barrow sat down with him to discuss the payments, Mr Thandi “disingenuously claimed” his actions were just errors.
Mr Thandi was suspended from the firm on 29 February 2024 and resigned five days later.
The firm refunded £5,500 to the client and deducted the same amount from money owed to Mr Thandi.
In his mitigation, which was not agreed by the SRA, Mr Thandi said he had a clean regulatory record with no prior disciplinary findings. He said he was experiencing “significant personal difficulties” at this time, and this was “an isolated incident of misconduct.”
The SDT said it was satisfied that Mr Thandi’s conduct was deliberate. “He had made no attempt to remedy the position and his explanation that he had given his personal account detailed in error was only provided after a complaint was made to the firm about the payments into Mr Thandi’s personal account.
“The tribunal was satisfied Mr Thandi knew that the monies had been paid into his account, and he knew that they should have been paid to the firm and had chosen not to do so. Ordinary and decent people would consider Mr Thandi’s conduct to be dishonest.”
Mr Thandi was struck off and ordered to pay costs of £23,085.