Decision record
John Charles Wright
Allegation / charges
Breaches, Failures, Solicitors' Accounts Rules
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
John Charles Wright, a solicitor and manager at Ashley Wilson LLP, was found to have acted in an own client/interest conflict between February and June 2016 by failing to disclose to his Firm and its vendor clients his continued direct involvement in the purchase of a property (financial arrangements, instructing the buyers' solicitors, preparing a pre-action protocol misrepresentation letter, and instructing Counsel). He also instructed the buyers' solicitors to make payments from client account not connected to any underlying transaction, breaching the Accounts Rules. He admitted both allegations. The Tribunal found he acted without integrity but made no finding of dishonesty. The matter was resolved on the papers by agreed outcome. Conduct was assessed as very serious (Level 4). He was fined £32,000 and ordered to pay costs of £15,600 plus VAT.
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Planned misconduct occurring over a period of months
- Acted without integrity
- Experienced solicitor admitted in 1991
- Motivated by desire to reduce purchase price to his benefit and detriment of the Firm's client
- Direct conflict with duties owed to the Firm's client
Mitigating factors:
- Isolated incident in a previously unblemished career
- Co-operated with the SRA
- Made early and full admissions