Timothy Thomas Rogers

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

The Respondent, a former sole practitioner, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court in August 2013 on his guilty plea of two counts of Cheat the Public Revenue, having submitted inconsistent SDLT and Land Registry figures to avoid £49,860 in SDLT and claiming a fraudulent £79,397 VAT repayment. He received 21 months imprisonment and a £5,000 confiscation order. The SDA Tribunal, proceeding in his absence, found all three allegations proved on the certificate of conviction, finding repeated deliberate dishonesty. With no exceptional circumstances, he was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £2,857.20.

Duties found breached:

• No taking unfair advantage
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Repeated dishonesty over a period of time, calculated and deliberate
• Clients suffered losses (£49,860 SDLT) and HMRC deprived of payments
• Deliberately concealed the true position by completing different figures on HMRC and Land Registry forms
• As a solicitor he knew clients would suffer most as Revenue would pursue them
• No evidence of insight or remorse

Mitigating factors:

• Reference to the Respondent's health issues (though no medical evidence before the Tribunal and already considered at sentencing)