Keith John O'Neill

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

Keith John O'Neill, a sole practitioner at Andrews McQueen, admitted five allegations in an agreed outcome before the SDT. He failed to disclose an ongoing SRA investigation on a PII proposal form to Aon (breaching Principles 2 and 6); improperly transferred about £4,941.33 in residual client balances to office account via illegitimate bills (breaching Rule 20.1 SAR 2011 and Principles 2 and 6); improperly retained funds for unpaid professional disbursements in the office account; failed to maintain adequate accounting records; and failed to adequately investigate a long history of office credit balances. A minimum client account shortage of £29,481.05 was identified. Dishonesty was alleged as an aggravating feature but was denied by the Respondent and NOT pursued/found; the SRA and Respondent agreed strike-off was sufficient in the absence of dishonesty. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £33,177.54 (not to be enforced without leave of the Tribunal).

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• Prosecutorial duty of disclosure
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money
• Prompt accounting and return of money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports

Aggravating factors:

• Breach of absolute obligation to safeguard client money
• Conduct spanned a long period (October 2009 to January 2018)
• Failed to take steps to stop creation of new office credit balances even after being made aware of the concern
• Raising illegitimate bills to give the impression of complying with the rules