Timothy James Miles

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

The Respondent, a salaried partner dealing with probate and conveyancing, forged a will for an elderly client (estate ~£700,000) who had in fact died intestate, obtained probate, then drafted a second will leaving substantial legacies to four of his friends who siphoned the money back to him; he used proceeds to buy a flat for £459,000. He also stole from a further nine estates between 2001-2005, defrauding ten clients of over £1.2 million. On 26 May 2006 he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of theft and one count of making a false instrument and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. The Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered costs of £9,548.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations

Aggravating factors:

• Defrauded ten clients of over £1.2 million over an extended four-year period
• Considerable deception including creating bogus documents and forging a partner's signature
• Drew others (his friends) into his dishonesty
• Theft from the modest estate of a young man who had committed suicide, depriving his mother of monies (described as 'thoroughly mean')
• Falsely told partners it was a one-off incident when confronted
• Gross breach of clients' and employer's trust; damaged firm's reputation and security of its employees

Mitigating factors:

• Personal problems at the relevant time including breakdown of his marriage
• Made good approximately 85% of the monies stolen