Fleur Cranage

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

Fleur Cranage, a non-solicitor conveyancing fee earner/legal executive at Thomson & Cook, set up her own search business (FQ Direct) which obtained searches from a genuine third-party provider and charged clients more than she paid, generating a secret profit of £3,683.28 between 16 November 2007 and 23 January 2008. The allegation of dishonesty was NOT pursued. The Tribunal found she had shown a lack of integrity and made a serious misjudgement. With her consent, the Tribunal made a Section 43 Order and ordered her to pay £3,500 costs within 28 days. She was given credit for admitting her actions and her junior status; the Order was not intended to be permanent.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Secret profit made over a period; had it continued some £14,000 might have been made over a year
• Initially prevaricated when confronted before admitting the conduct

Mitigating factors:

• Relatively junior fee earner
• Credit for admitting her actions
• Consented to the making of the Order
• Offered to reimburse the profits made
• Positive character references; fellow of ILEX and completed LPC