SDT: Serious lack of integrity
A solicitor who breached an undertaking and then tried to stop his opposite number reporting him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has been struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) decided that the conduct of Charles Michael Stevens demonstrated “a troubling mind set”.
Mr Stevens, who qualified in 2007, was a consultant at Essex firm Bawtrees acting for the buyer of a £6.5m property.
On Friday 1 July 2022, he told the seller’s solicitor, Lynne Goldsby of Birmingham firm The Wilkes Partnership, that he had received the 10% deposit from his client but that, due to “outside appointments”, he would be unable to transfer them funds until the Monday.
He asked to amend the undertaking he had given to that date, and Ms Goldsby agreed.
The truth was, however, that the money had not arrived. Before the SDT, he claimed he had only said the money was “in the system” based on his honest belief that the client was in the process of transferring it. He admitted being reckless about this.
Mr Stevens then failed to perform the undertaking to transfer the deposit and send the buyer’s contract copy by 4 July – which he said was because the client had not provided the money. The SDT said this showed a lack of integrity.
After Ms Goldsby’s efforts to resolve the matter failed, partner Kevin Lynch became involved and in the course of settlement discussions in mid-September 2022, Mr Stevens sent him an email stating: “My client agrees to the below on the basis that, as we mentioned before, this matter is then dropped and neither your firm or your clients proceed with any action against me or Bawtrees including reporting either to the Law Society or the SRA. If you can confirm this then I think we are agreed.”
Mr Stevens claimed he was merely conveying his client’s settlement terms and not trying to stop a report to the regulator. The SDT said he was trying to cover his tracks and again had lacked integrity.
Unbeknown to Mr Stevens, Mr Lynch had already reported him to the SRA.
The SDT said the misrepresentation to Ms Goldsby “had gone beyond wishful thinking and represented recklessness of a high order”.
His motivation was “not entirely clear” but due to the high value of the property “it could be reasonably be inferred that the need to get the deal ‘over the line’ by whatever means played significant role.
“Therefore, the respondent may have been swayed by the potential rewards for him and the firm, however, such considerations should not have induced him to take the risk which he did take.”
The misconduct had involved “serious lack of integrity at a very high level on two separate occasions (separated by a little over a month) demonstrating a pattern of behaviour and a troubling mind set on the respondent’s part”.
Effectively hiding behind his client and attempting to persuade a fellow solicitor not to fulfil their own regulatory reporting responsibilities was, the SDT said, “particularly egregious”.
Mr Stevens’ mitigation – including his “hitherto unblemished record and his many good qualities, as set out in the four-character references, and also his remorse” – could “not dislodge the inherent seriousness of the admitted misconduct which bore heavily on the tribunal’s need to protect of the public and the profession’s reputation”.
The fine suggested by the solicitor’s advocate was inadequate. The SDT gave “earnest thought” to a suspension, but the conduct had been at a level “where even this would have been inappropriate”.
It concluded: “In the circumstances of this case, the protection of the public, the public confidence in the profession and the reputation of the profession required no lesser sanction than that the respondent be removed from the roll.”
Though Mr Stevens had agreed to pay the SRA costs of £25,000, the SDT decided that, given his “extremely limited” means and how being struck off would likely make them even more limited and unlikely that they would ever be paid, there should be no order for costs.
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