Steven Barker

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

The Respondent, admitted as a solicitor in February 2016 and employed as an in-house solicitor at Ageas (UK) Ltd, was convicted on 19 September 2016 at South East (Portsmouth) Magistrates' Court on his own confession of four offences of dishonestly obtaining services, one offence of making/supplying articles for use in fraud, and one offence of dishonestly making a false representation, all under the Fraud Act 2006, arising from fraudulent misuse of a parking permit. He received a 6-month suspended sentence (24 months) plus 150 hours unpaid work. The Tribunal, dealing with the matter on the papers by agreed outcome, found the admissions properly made and that the misconduct involved dishonesty. No exceptional circumstances were established, so the Respondent was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £1,142.

Duties found breached:

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

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Misconduct involved commission of criminal offences
• Deliberate and occurred over a period of time
• Concealment of wrongdoing - tried to lie his way out repeatedly when challenged
• Motivated by personal/financial gain causing loss to the local authority

Mitigating factors:

• Lacked experience as a solicitor
• Made frank admissions (though only after being found out)
• Co-operated with the Applicant
• Pleaded guilty at earliest opportunity
• Was suffering from stress relating to employment and had financial problems
• Repetition considered highly unlikely