Philip David Douglas John Osborne

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

The Respondent, a solicitor admitted in 1971, acted as executor in several estates. He raised excessive bills (in the estate of Mr E, 10 bills totalling £26,855.81, found by a costs draftsman to be over three times the maximum reasonable amount), submitted two differing sets of estate accounts understating assets and fees to charity beneficiaries, and improperly withdrew monies from client account. In the estate of R deceased he raised two bills totalling £11,129.84 within a month and repaid £7,500 after about 18 months, found to be a dishonest withdrawal for his own benefit. In the estate of Mr T deceased eight bills totalling £19,654.50 were raised, characterised as a loan from a friend (later largely repaid); the Law Society did not pursue dishonesty on that estate. The Respondent admitted the allegations including dishonesty by letter and did not attend. Despite long good service and ill health, the Tribunal found he fell far short of the standards of honesty and integrity and struck him off the Roll, ordering him to pay costs to be assessed if not agreed.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• No improper use of client money
• Truthful, non-misleading advertising
• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate and conscious submission of excessive bills
• Frequent billing including sequences of multiple bills within days
• Bills in round sums and uninformative as to work done
• Maintained two differing sets of estate accounts to cover up the extent of charging
• Took monies from estates to which he was not entitled
• No detailed explanation provided despite Law Society enquiries