Dudley Richard Owen-Thomas

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

Sole practitioner solicitor acted as co-attorney under an EPA for Mrs B and as sole executor of her estate. He appropriated £384,982.37 from Mrs B's client account for personal use (paying his own tax liability and a Spanish property transaction) without security or informing his co-attorney of the amounts/purpose. He transferred £175,000 from client Dr LW's account to repay part of this, leaving over £100,000 unsecured and outstanding; he falsely claimed Dr LW was not a client. He also paid £5,000 of client Mr T's funds to the Inland Revenue for his own tax, falsely claiming a £10,000 bill when Mr T had only received a £2,000 bill. He overcharged Mrs B's estate nearly twice the maximum reasonable amount. He admitted all allegations except dishonesty. The Tribunal found dishonesty established (Twinsectra test) in respect of each client and overall, declined to accept the proposed Regulatory Settlement Agreement, and struck him off, ordering costs of £16,750 with a £2,500 interim payment within 28 days.

Duties found breached:

• Act in the client's best interests
• Costs and fee transparency to client
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues
• Honesty
• Integrity
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• No own-interest conflict

Aggravating factors:

• Blatant abuse of position of trust as attorney and executor
• Use of vulnerable/deceased client funds
• Untruthful to the Investigation Officer
• Repeated pattern across multiple clients
• Attempted to use Regulatory Settlement Agreement to avoid strike-off
• Substantial sums involved (£384,982.37); over £100,000 remained unpaid

Mitigating factors:

• Admitted all allegations except dishonesty
• Repaid some of the monies with interest