Andrew Christopher Aitchison

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

Andrew Christopher Aitchison, an experienced personal injury assistant solicitor, backdated letters on six occasions between November 2011 and July 2014 to conceal that he had missed (or believed he had missed) limitation dates or claim form service deadlines, and to justify closing files ahead of a Lexcel re-accreditation audit. The Tribunal, proceeding in his absence, found all six allegations proved and made an express finding of dishonesty applying the Twinsectra test. Finding no exceptional circumstances, it struck him off the Roll and ordered him to pay costs of £5,500 (reduced from £6,684.58), not to be enforced without the Tribunal's permission given his limited means.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Act in the client's best interests
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Repeated misconduct over a three-year period
• Conduct was planned, systematic and involved conscious impropriety
• Falsifying documents to conceal professional errors
• Harm caused to clients and to reputation of the profession
• Experienced solicitor who knew he should not falsify documents
• Remained silent until a client complaint arose

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary findings
• No financial gain (other than continuing employment)