Marshall Neil Craig Ronald

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

The Respondent, a sole practitioner solicitor, became involved in a dubious transaction to repatriate a stolen Da Vinci painting for a fee, failing to inform police. He withdrew £638,500 of client money held for two brothers under a CPO transaction for unrelated purposes, including £500,000 connected to the painting and payments benefiting himself. The Tribunal found dishonesty regarding the client account withdrawals under the Twinsectra test, and found conflicts of interest and failure to disclose information to a client. He was struck off the Roll of Solicitors and ordered to pay costs (schedule sought £16,312.60), such costs not to be enforced without leave of the Tribunal given his financial and medical circumstances.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• No acting against a former client
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Use of client money for own personal interests
• Failure to inform police despite dealing with stolen goods and agreement not to notify police
• Increased fee arrangement (20% of finder's fee, rising from £2m to £4.25m)
• Serious damage to reputation of profession and risk to public

Mitigating factors:

• Suffered nervous breakdown, bipolar disorder and type 2 diabetes (medical report provided)
• Financially ruined with mortgage arrears, possession order and County Court judgments
• Admitted the Rule 22 breach
• No previous disciplinary sanctions