Angela Caroline Hudson

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

The Respondent, a solicitor, was convicted on 7 March 2017 under sections 44 and 58 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 for repeatedly contacting a client (X) by mobile phone while he was in prison, receiving a 4-month custodial sentence suspended for 24 months. She admitted breaching SRA Principles 1, 2 and 6. The Tribunal found she failed to act with integrity but made no finding of dishonesty. Given the seriousness (a suspended custodial sentence), the Tribunal found the case fell at the boundary between strike-off and suspension, but chose an 18-month suspension plus an 18-month post-suspension condition barring sole practice, and ordered costs of £3,230.30. The Tribunal also declined a recusal application over an unredacted Form MG5.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Serve justice and improve the law

Aggravating factors:

• Criminal conviction (suspended custodial sentence of 4 months)
• Conduct sustained over a 2.5 month period (102 text messages)
• She ought reasonably to have known her actions breached her obligations to protect the public and reputation of the profession

Mitigating factors:

• Conduct related to one specific client whom she believed was in genuine fear for his life
• Contact initiated by the client; she had raised concerns with the Prison Governor
• Previously unblemished record; single episode
• Self-reported to the SRA and cooperated with police
• Pleaded guilty and showed genuine insight and remorse
• Ceased the communication voluntarily before being discovered
• Excellent character references; conduct out of character
• Acted naively under intense pressure while inexperienced at running a practice
• Low culpability; low risk of repetition