Charles John Lindley Penn

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

A sole practitioner solicitor admitted to failing to file his Annual Accountant's Report for the period ended 31 October 2000 and failing to respond to OSS correspondence. The Tribunal substantiated both allegations, imposed a £1,000 fine and £1,039.65 costs, and ordered indefinite suspension unless the Report was filed or a waiver obtained within 3 months. No dishonesty was found.

Duties found breached:

• Handle inadvertently received material
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports

Aggravating factors:

• Accountant's Report remained outstanding at date of hearing
• Failure to respond to own professional body's correspondence

Mitigating factors:

• Unblemished 41-year career with no prior disciplinary proceedings
• Admissions and non-contested allegations
• Books of account mislaid during office move amid landlord harassment
• Prior audit by merging firm's accountants revealed no problems
• Genuine remorse and shame