Davina Charlton

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

The SRA alleged that Ms Charlton, a Senior Associate in the Wills and Probate team at Nelsons Solicitors, sent misleading correspondence to a client's daughter and son-in-law (7 April and 13 May 2022) and to the Firm's Professional Standards Team (27 July 2022) by omitting that LPAs had only been sent to the OPG on 6 April 2022, alleging breaches of Principles 2, 4 and 5 and Paragraph 1.4 of the Code, with dishonesty and recklessness advanced. The Tribunal accepted Ms Charlton's evidence that she genuinely believed the LPAs had been sent in November 2021, that the 7 April email was a generic holding email, and that her emails were factually accurate responses. It found she was under extraordinary workload pressures (around 130 files) with inadequate administrative support (IO and Richo systems). The Tribunal gave little weight to unagreed disciplinary meeting notes relied on by the SRA (no author called as witness). It found no dishonesty, no lack of integrity, and no recklessness. All allegations were dismissed with no order as to costs.