Laurence Ian Ward & Colette Maria Farrell

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

Laurence Ian Ward, a solicitor at Ward & Co, admitted allegations 11-13 including dishonesty: he made material alterations to client account cheques (changing payee details) and presented altered/incorrect copy cheques to the SRA while attempting to mislead them. Allegations 1-8 and 10 were left to lie on file. The Tribunal found no exceptional circumstances and struck him off the Roll. Colette Maria Farrell, an admitted clerk (non-solicitor), was found to have acted dishonestly in conveyancing transactions involving her daughter and family members, concealing parties' identities from lender CHL and misusing mortgage funds (hallmarks of mortgage fraud); a Section 43 order was made against her. Ward ordered to pay costs of £13,500 (£9,000 of the £39,000 allegations 1-9 costs plus £4,500 for allegations 10-13); Farrell ordered to pay £30,000 in costs.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• Honesty
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• First Respondent had two previous Tribunal appearances (2002 and 2007)
• Conduct went to the core of a solicitor's position of trust
• Second Respondent's systematic course of conduct concealing parties' identities and preferring family interests
• Transactions exhibited hallmarks of mortgage fraud

Mitigating factors:

• First Respondent's behaviour said to be out of character with some ill health issues
• First Respondent made full and early admissions
• Second Respondent expressed apology and stated she would not seek legal employment again, cited lack of training