Timothy John Luckhurst-Matthews

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

The Respondent, an in-house solicitor, was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court on 26 March 2025 of sexual assault contrary to section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, committed on 9 December 2022. He received a 10-month suspended sentence. His appeals to the Court of Appeal and attempts to appeal to the Supreme Court failed, with an ECHR application pending. Relying on the certificate of conviction under Rule 32 SDPR, the Tribunal found breaches of Principles 2 and 5 proved. The Respondent accepted he could not rebut the case unless the conviction was overturned. The Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered costs of £4,000 (reduced from the £10,922.50 claimed).

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Uphold public trust in the profession

Aggravating factors:

• Conviction on indictment of sexual assault on a female
• Conduct attracted adverse national press publicity

Mitigating factors:

• Self-reported conviction to the SRA
• No previous disciplinary findings
• Voluntarily agreed not to renew practising certificate and to have name removed from Roll pending appeal