Iain Farrimond

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

The Respondent, admitted in 1987, was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife on 30 September 2016 and sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment. The SDT found breaches of Principles 1, 2 and 6 proved (on admission and the documents), including a lack of integrity, but made no express finding of dishonesty. It found low culpability due to a severe medical condition at the time and high harm to the profession's reputation given media coverage. The SDT imposed an indefinite suspension and ordered £3,309.53 costs. On the SRA's appeal, the High Court set aside the suspension and substituted an order striking the Respondent off the Roll.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Criminal conviction for attempted murder with a custodial sentence
• Some element of preplanning (had written a suicide note)

Mitigating factors:

• Serious medical condition at the material time reducing culpability
• Conduct not committed in the course of practice
• Immediate call to emergency services and full cooperation with police and regulator
• Early guilty plea and frank admissions
• Genuine insight and remorse
• Single incident in an otherwise unblemished career of nearly 30 years
• Glowing character references and supportive victim impact statement
• Lenient sentence with substantial mitigation identified by the sentencing judge