Respondent AH

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

The Respondent, an associate solicitor, was convicted of making 9,824 indecent images of children (categories A, B and C) and of arranging and facilitating a child sex offence involving an 8-year-old girl. He was sentenced to 19 months' imprisonment (suspended on appeal), made subject to a 10-year SHPO and placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years. The Tribunal approved an agreed outcome that the only appropriate and proportionate sanction was to strike him off the Roll, and ordered him to pay agreed costs of £4,002.

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Sexually motivated misconduct
• Misconduct occurred over a long period (images possessed over a 10-year period)
• Respondent had direct control over his actions
• Severe harm to victims of sexual abuse shown in the images
• Respondent knew or ought to have known the misconduct breached the obligation to protect the public and the reputation of the profession

Mitigating factors:

• Substantial rehabilitation efforts over 4 years since arrest, including completing the Lucy Faithful Foundation Course and 92 therapy sessions at his own expense
• Attended and ran Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings since June 2019
• Developed insight into offending triggers and shown genuine remorse
• Previously of good character and no further offending since the indictment period