Victoria Kate Linnell Johns

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

The Respondent, a former in-house solicitor at a bank, was convicted at Southwark Crown Court of five counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception and seven counts of acquiring criminal property, and sentenced to five years imprisonment (half suspended). She had used her position to arrange an unauthorised $10.9m loan, receiving about £1.5m. As she had already been removed from the Roll before disciplinary action, the SRA sought an order preventing restoration. The Tribunal found the Rule 1.06 allegation proved, found serious dishonesty, and ordered under s.47(2)(g) that she not be restored to the Roll except by order of the Tribunal, with costs of £750 not to be enforced without leave.

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Serious dishonesty involving a very large sum of money (loan of $10.9 million)
• Personal benefit of around £1.5 million
• Abuse of her position as deputy head of Legal and Compliance
• Use of others' personalised stamps and lies to pressure employees to authorise the loan
• Continued to profit from the fraud after it was discovered by the bank
• No formal admissions made and failure to engage in proceedings

Mitigating factors:

• Previous good character (per sentencing judge)
• Existing mental health problems exacerbated by the matter
• No previous disciplinary record