David James Chalcraft

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

David James Chalcraft, a salaried partner and COFA at Alexander & Partners (admitted 1985), admitted all five allegations on an agreed-outcome basis dealt with on the papers. He caused Client A's clinical negligence claim to be struck out in December 2012 by failing to comply with a court order, then concealed this for a decade, sending misleading correspondence to the client and others suggesting the claim remained live. He also settled Client B's claim in July 2017 without instructions and misled Client B that the matter was still ongoing. He retained client monies without proper reason, provided a banking facility from the client account, and as COFA failed to obtain accountant's reports. He expressly admitted dishonesty for his pre-25 November 2019 conduct on allegations 1 and 2. The Tribunal found the admissions properly made and ordered him struck off the Roll plus costs of £10,000.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• Proper basis for allegations
• No improper use of client money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports