Winifred Djabatey

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

The Respondent, a non-practising barrister and un-admitted employee of Tees Solicitors (formerly Stanley Tees), made 19 unauthorised payments totalling £74,951.45 from the firm's client account to third parties with whom he had personal relationships, by deliberately creating surplus funds on client files (through under-billing and not processing invoices) to mislead his employers. The largest single payment was £34,000 to a personal friend. The Tribunal applied the Twinsectra test and found the conduct dishonest, describing it as a deliberate, premeditated systematic attempt to defraud the practice. The Respondent did not appear and was believed to have gone to Ghana. A section 43 order was granted and costs of £17,500 ordered.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Course of conduct over a long period of time
• Deliberate, cunning and premeditated conduct designed to mislead employers
• Abuse of trust to deal with client funds
• Clients suffered losses
• Serious damage to reputation of the profession
• Part of a network/systematic attempt to defraud a solicitor's practice