John Charles Nason Craxton

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

John Charles Nason Craxton, a former solicitor, was found guilty of professional misconduct for facilitating a large-scale property fraud perpetrated by Edwin McLaren between 2009 and 2013. He acted in conveyancing transactions for sellers (and in two cases also for purchasers and lenders) where home owners were defrauded into selling their properties to McLaren's nominees. The Tribunal made an express finding that he acted in a dishonest manner, breaching his common law obligation not to facilitate fraud and his duty of utmost propriety to lender clients, and breached numerous practice rules, money laundering regulations and POCA. As his name had already been removed from the Roll at his request, the Tribunal prohibited restoration of his name to the Roll and found him liable in expenses (no figure stated).

Duties found breached:

• AML and crime-prevention compliance
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues
• No conflict between current clients
• No taking unfair advantage

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct at the very highest level of seriousness, described as deplorable
• Facilitated a major property fraud as one of the major players
• Previous finding of professional misconduct (26 November 2013, relating to overcharging of fees)
• Risk to safety of the public and reputation of the profession
• Failure to carry out client identification or due diligence in all transactions

Mitigating factors:

• Admitted all the factual averments and accepted his conduct amounted to professional misconduct
• Gave evidence in the McLaren trial (with immunity from prosecution)
• Significant delay in the prosecution
• Limited income and had been sequestrated in 2011