Daniel Whittingham

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

Daniel Whittingham, admitted 2015, sought investment from two members of the public (Mr Sobun and Mr Mondini) for a venture. He falsely represented he was employed as a solicitor at Blake Morgan (sending old business cards and directing them to his LinkedIn), and told Mr Mondini repayments would come partly from his salary as a lawyer, when he had been dismissed from the firm in June 2018. He later misled the SRA about how investors came to believe he worked at the firm. The Tribunal found breaches of Principles 2, 6 and 7 and Outcome 11.1, and found him dishonest under the Ivey test on all three allegations. With no exceptional circumstances (Sharma), he was struck off. The Tribunal initially ordered £5,000 costs; on the SRA's appeal the Administrative Court substituted costs of £19,468.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• No taking unfair advantage
• No conflict between current clients
• Cooperate openly with regulators

Aggravating factors:

• Express finding of dishonesty
• Deliberate and calculated conduct
• Gross abuse of his position as a solicitor
• Misled and gave obfuscating answers to his regulator
• Two separate individuals harmed financially and personally
• Unclear whether investors had been repaid

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary findings
• Hitherto unblemished career