Simon James Ernest Easton

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

The respondent, a solicitor admitted in 1972, was convicted at Southwark Crown Court of three offences of false accounting (contrary to s.17(1)(a) Theft Act 1968) and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment (plus a £60,000 prosecution costs order). He had agreed to split a client's divorce bill so the client could dishonestly finance £44,000 of costs via his company and its pension fund. The Tribunal found the allegations substantiated (not contested), expressly noting the conviction involved dishonesty and that he cheated others including the pension fund. Despite strong mitigation and regret, the Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered him to pay costs of £1,372.40.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations

Aggravating factors:

• Criminal conviction involving dishonesty
• Sentenced to term of imprisonment
• Brought the profession into disrepute
• Deception carefully done with much thought and effort to avoid detection
• Effectively cheated others including a pension fund

Mitigating factors:

• Seventeen years previously unblemished career
• High quality character references and testimonials
• Full reparation plus interest made
• Persuaded against his better judgement by a manipulative client
• Isolated incident
• Family suffered hardship and public humiliation