Decision record
Naomi Jane Barnes
Allegation / charges
Criminal Convictions
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
Naomi Jane Barnes was convicted at Harrow Crown Court on 23 December 2015 of acquiring criminal property (£36,000) and transferring criminal property (£8,000) under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, arising from funds her partner had stolen from his employer. She received a 6-month suspended sentence with unpaid work. The SDT found she breached Principles 1, 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011, including acting with a lack of integrity. The Tribunal made no express finding of dishonesty. Given the seriousness of the conviction and her lack of insight or remorse, the Tribunal struck her off the Roll and ordered costs of £2,000.
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Criminal conviction with suspended custodial sentence
- Deliberate conduct over a period of almost a year
- A member of the public suffered financial losses
- Had undertaken anti-money laundering training and ought to have made proper enquiries
- Lack of genuine insight or remorse and no apology
Mitigating factors:
- Previously unblemished record
- Co-operated with the regulator
- Young and relatively inexperienced (qualified just over 4 years)
- Culpability described by sentencing judge as 'at the lesser end'
- Conduct largely arose from relationship with her partner RC
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]
Duties engaged
- Overriding duty to the court
- Honesty
- Integrity
- No bribery or improper gifts
- Personal probity and fitness to practise
- Uphold public trust in the profession
- No unlawful discrimination or harassment
- Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
- Hold a current practising certificate
- AML and crime-prevention compliance
- Serve justice and improve the law