Laurence Ian Ward & Colette Maria Farrell

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

First Respondent Laurence Ian Ward, a solicitor, admitted allegations 11-13 including dishonesty for making material alterations to client account cheques and presenting altered copy cheques to the SRA in an attempt to mislead/deceive. Allegations 1-8 and 10 were left to lie on file. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £13,500. Second Respondent Colette Maria Farrell, a non-solicitor clerk, was found to have acted dishonestly in multiple conveyancing transactions bearing hallmarks of mortgage fraud (concealing that the purchaser was her daughter, misusing lender funds, acting in conflicts of interest, fabricating a letter with a non-existent mortgage account number). The Tribunal made a Section 43 Order against her and ordered her to pay costs of £30,000. Both proceeded in absence/without appearance; Tribunal applied Twinsectra dishonesty test.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• Honesty
• Act in the client's best interests
• Disclose material information to client
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money
• Supervise staff and delegated work
• Honour professional undertakings
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• First Respondent had two previous appearances before the Tribunal (2002 and 2007)
• Conduct went to the core of a solicitor's position of trust
• Systematic course of conduct exhibiting hallmarks of mortgage fraud (Second Respondent)
• Second Respondent preferred family interests over clients and concealed true identity of parties to lender
• Buyer client purchasing properties from vulnerable clients in financial difficulty

Mitigating factors:

• First Respondent: behaviour said to be out of character with ill-health issues, and made full and early admissions
• Second Respondent: no previous disciplinary history, expressed apology and stated she would not seek future legal employment

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=43500"]