David Andrew Wilson & Natalie Jane Crompton

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

Two partners of Garth Rigby & Co (Wilson, COLP; Crompton, COFA) faced allegations arising from an SRA forensic investigation revealing Accounts Rules breaches, a client account shortage of £85,933.64 and a debit balance of £9,611.16. Allegations of overcharging and dishonesty against the Second Respondent were withdrawn before hearing after further costs-expert evidence; no dishonesty finding was made. All remaining allegations were admitted and found proved, including breaches of Principle 2 on the basis of lack of integrity (not dishonesty). The Tribunal accepted the Agreed Outcome for the First Respondent: 3 months' suspension plus practising conditions and additional restriction that he only work in SRA-approved employment, with costs of £9,714.67. It rejected the proposed strike-off of the Second Respondent as disproportionate given the absence of dishonesty and her illness, imposing instead a 2-year suspension with the same conditions and costs of £4,800 (reduced from £16,159.37 on affordability).

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No improper use of client money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• Firm governance, systems and compliance

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct endured over a significant period of time
• Respondents knew or ought to have known the conduct breached obligations to protect the public and reputation of the profession
• Second Respondent was COFA with particular responsibility for accounting; First Respondent was COLP responsible for supervision

Mitigating factors:

• No loss caused to any client; costs related to work actually carried out
• Second Respondent's serious health conditions/disabilities undermined her performance
• Catastrophic IT server failure in October 2012 caused loss of accounting data
• Genuine insight and admissions; no prior disciplinary history
• Second Respondent contributed £12,000 of her own money to make good perceived shortfall
• First Respondent trusted his long-known partner and was frequently away from office
• Lack of integrity found related to process only, not to the end result, with no subjective conscious wrongdoing

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=14514.67"]