John McLanachan

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

Mr John McLanachan, called 1980, admitted 7 charges of professional misconduct arising from his conduct of three Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) judicial review cases in 2019. The misconduct included wasting court time, handing up selective extracts of an authority, recklessly misleading the court on multiple occasions (about how long he had the case, who drafted the grounds, and Salem Hosein's status as a former barrister), incoherent grounds, and failing to provide complete representation history. The Tribunal grouped charges 3,4,6,9 in Group F (misleading the court) and charges 1,2,7 in Group G (administration of justice), assessing the Group F charges as upper-range seriousness. No dishonesty was alleged or found. The Tribunal unanimously imposed disbarment and ordered £3,510 costs.

Duties found breached:

• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• No conflict between current clients
• Proper basis for allegations

Aggravating factors:

• Barrister of many years' experience (called 1980), albeit not in immigration matters
• Prolonged period (2019-2023) during which conduct posed a risk to the administration of justice

Mitigating factors:

• No previous findings of misconduct
• Admitted the charges, avoiding a contested hearing
• Ill health over the past few years
• No intention to return to practice