Omolarami Akindiji

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

Omolarami Akindiji, a solicitor employed as Legal Services Manager at Corby Borough Council, submitted two misleading invoices totalling £1,550 plus VAT each for payment to her husband's company, Alfa Topco, for legal consultancy services that had not been provided, without declaring her interest. When interviewed about the fraud allegation on 6 December 2018, she told seven lies including inventing a fictitious contact 'James Akin' who was in fact her husband. The Tribunal found breaches of Principles 2 and 6 proved and made express findings of dishonesty on both allegations. Proceeding in the Respondent's absence, the Tribunal found no exceptional circumstances and ordered that she be struck off the Roll and pay costs of £22,000.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• Honesty
• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct was premeditated and repeated (more than one invoice submitted)
• Prolonged lies about the situation
• Financial gain motive for Alfa Topco, owned by her husband
• Offered multiple contradictory explanations, blaming line manager, lack of systems, lack of training and poor health
• No insight demonstrated
• Experienced solicitor in a position of significant responsibility
• Dishonesty

Mitigating factors:

• Previous good character with no prior disciplinary findings
• Made some admissions in correspondence with the SRA (though contradictory)