Jude Sebastian Fletcher

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

Jude Sebastian Fletcher (also known as Jude Grammer), owner, director and COFA of Fletcher Day Limited, misappropriated a minimum of £997,417.58 of client money between January and July 2022, contributing to an overall client account shortage of £2,096,757.59 as at 30 September 2022. He transferred £2 million of client funds into a Metro Bank account (-5577) held in the name of the dissolved LLP, to which he was the sole signatory and had exclusive access, then made payments to himself (under the name Jude Grammer) disguised as property sale and share sale transactions, and £100,000 to Client A to repay loan monies, none connected to legitimate client matters. He also provided the SRA with falsified Metro Bank statements (Nov 2020) and a falsified Metro Bank letter (dated 21 Dec 2020), and provided forged statements showing a fictitious £2.1 million balance to the Firm's cashier in October 2022 to conceal the shortage. The Tribunal made an express finding of dishonesty under Ivey, found all allegations proved, and ordered him struck off the Roll. The hearing proceeded in his absence.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• No conflict between current clients
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Not misrepresent regulated status

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate and sustained misconduct over a period of months
• Misappropriation of client funds for personal benefit
• Fabrication and provision of false documents to both the SRA and the Firm to conceal misconduct
• Abuse of position as owner, director and COFA with sole control over the accounts
• Lack of engagement with the regulator and proceedings