Noel William Pugsley

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

Noel William Pugsley, a partner specialising in wills and probate, misappropriated client monies totalling £203,785 from four client accounts (Mr B, Mr G, Mr S, Mrs F) over 13 months to conceal his inaction on unrelated litigation files, using misleading ledger entries. He also fabricated a Decree Absolute and misled his client Mrs LW into believing she was divorced. The Tribunal found all five allegations proved beyond reasonable doubt, including dishonesty under the Twinsectra test, even though there was no personal financial gain. The Respondent did not attend and did not contest the allegations. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £10,417.60.

Duties found breached:

• Act in the client's best interests
• Integrity
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Deliberate, calculated and repeated misconduct over 13 months
• Steps taken to conceal misconduct via misleading entries on Client Ledger Posting Forms
• 13 years post-qualified experience operating at partner level with direct control
• Potentially catastrophic harm to clients (Mr and Mrs LW believed they were divorced when still married)

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary matters; out of character
• Genuine insight and remorse
• Co-operation with the SRA and early, comprehensive admissions
• No personal financial gain - motivation was to conceal professional failings
• Underlying health and personal difficulties and overwhelming workload
• Waived his capital payment which was used towards repaying the client account deficit