Ainul Hoque

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

Ainul Hoque, a Chartered Legal Executive employed as a paralegal, appealed against an SRA Adjudicator's decision that rebuked him and made a section 43 order following findings arising from Employment Tribunal proceedings against his former firm. The Adjudicator found he failed to give credible evidence to the Employment Tribunal, assisted in drafting a 'witness testimony' on the firm's behalf without authority, and sent confidential client documents to his personal email. Breaches of SRA Principles 1, 2, 4 and 6 and Outcomes 4.1 and 5.1 were found, including a lack of integrity. The dishonesty allegation was stood over and never pursued, so no dishonesty was found. The Tribunal, applying the civil standard and reviewing rather than rehearing, held the Adjudicator's conclusions were within the bounds of reasonable disagreement and not wrong or unjust. It confirmed the section 43 order, affirmed the rebuke, and ordered the Appellant to pay costs of £12,000 (reduced from £19,215 claimed).

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Act in the client's best interests
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Handle inadvertently received material

Aggravating factors:

• Appellant was a legally qualified Chartered Legal Executive in a position of responsibility and trust
• Conduct potentially misled the Employment Tribunal
• Created a 'witness testimony' document on behalf of the firm without authority
• Conduct formed part of a pattern

Mitigating factors:

• No finding of dishonesty made
• CILEx had found no risk to the public, no loss to clients, no prior conduct matters and no personal gain
• Some remediation of behaviour acknowledged

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]