Decision record
Albert Bargery
Allegation / charges
Breaches, Failures
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
Mr Bargery, a solicitor, admitted providing his client with a fabricated County Court Order (May 2018) and a fabricated email purporting to chase payment (September 2018) to disguise his lack of progress on the client's matter, and later made false representations to his employer between June and August 2020 about his cooperation with the SRA investigation. He admitted all allegations including dishonesty. The Tribunal, determining the matter on the papers via an agreed outcome, found the admissions properly made and, given dishonesty at the highest level with no exceptional circumstances, ordered that he be struck off the Roll and pay costs of £10,000.
Duties found breached:
- Not mislead third parties or opponents
- Act in the client's best interests
- Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
- No conflict between current clients
Aggravating factors:
- Dishonesty at the highest level
- Conduct to the detriment of the client, who bore costs of unsuccessful proceedings
- Repeated dishonest conduct over time (2018 and again 2020)
- False representations made to employer
Mitigating factors:
- No mitigation advanced by the Respondent
Duties engaged
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Not mislead third parties or opponents
- No bribery or improper gifts
- Personal probity and fitness to practise
- Uphold public trust in the profession
- No unlawful discrimination or harassment
- Act in the client's best interests
- Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
- No conflict between current clients