Philip Joseph Shiner & John Dickinson

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

Philip Joseph Shiner, sole principal of Public Interest Lawyers, faced 24 allegations arising from his conduct acting for Iraqi nationals in the Battle of Danny Boy/Al-Sweady claims. The Tribunal proceeded in his absence after refusing an adjournment. It found proved allegations including encouraging unsolicited direct approaches to potential clients, improper referral fees and fee-sharing arrangements with agent Mazin Younis (including contingency fees, historic cases and publicly funded cases), misleading responses to SRA s44B Notices, failures of candour to the Court and full and frank disclosure to the LSC, poor document management, and reckless conduct at a 2008 press conference. The Tribunal made express findings of dishonesty in respect of Allegations 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.13 and 1.14 (authorising an agreement to change Younis's evidence, presenting it to the SRA, creating misleading emails, and misleading s44B responses), applying the Twinsectra test. Given the very high culpability and serious harm, the only appropriate sanction was striking off. He was ordered to pay costs subject to detailed assessment with an interim payment of £250,000.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No tampering with or coaching witnesses
• Keep client informed and respond promptly
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Disclose referrals, commissions and benefits
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• Firm governance, systems and compliance
• Report serious misconduct of others
• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct was deliberate, calculated and repeated over several years
• Concealed wrongdoing through elaborate strategies to mislead the SRA
• Very high culpability; highly experienced solicitor of over 25 years
• Motivated by securing high profile clients with reputational and financial reward
• Directly misled the regulator
• Serious harm to individuals (British soldiers falsely accused) and to reputation of the profession
• Limited insight into wrongdoing beyond admissions

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary matters before the Tribunal
• Made a number of admissions
• Positive character references
• Personal circumstances/ill-health at the material time