Omolarami Akindiji

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The Respondent, Legal Services Manager at Corby Borough Council, submitted two invoices totalling work for her husband's company Alfa Topco for 'Legal Consultancy' services that were not provided, failing to declare her interest, and told seven lies during an internal fraud investigation interview including inventing a fictitious contact named 'James Akin' who was actually her husband. The Tribunal, proceeding in her absence, found breaches of Principles 2 and 6 and made express findings of dishonesty under the Ivey test for both allegations. Finding no exceptional circumstances, the Tribunal ordered the Respondent struck off the Roll and to pay costs of £22,000.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• No improper solicitation or touting
• Proper basis for allegations

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Pre-meditated and repeated conduct (more than one invoice submitted)
• Prolonged lies about the situation
• Motivation of financial gain for husband's company from public funds
• Failure to declare interest/conflict
• Multiple contradictory explanations blaming line manager, lack of systems, lack of knowledge and poor health
• No insight demonstrated
• Senior position of responsibility as Legal Services Manager

Mitigating factors:

• Previous good character
• No previous disciplinary findings