Richard John Swinburn

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

Sole practitioner found guilty of all 18 allegations including accounts rules breaches, undertaking failures, overcharging clients, money laundering and indemnity insurance failures. The Tribunal made express findings of dishonesty: he failed to tell a client damages had been paid into client account and "lent" her £4,000 of her own money, overcharged clients in a series of cases, and misled Investigation Officers. He had a prior 2003 disciplinary finding. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay £30,000 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Disclose adverse law to the court
• Proper basis for allegations
• No improper communication with the court
• No taking unfair advantage
• Disclose material information to client
• Advise on alternatives, settlement and outcome
• Costs and fee transparency to client
• No improper use of client money
• Prompt accounting and return of money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• Diligence and timeliness
• Professional indemnity insurance
• Report serious misconduct of others
• Honour professional undertakings