Simon James Ernest Easton

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

The respondent, admitted in 1972, was convicted after a contested trial at Southwark Crown Court of three offences of false accounting and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment (concurrent), serving six months. He had agreed with a client known to have a history of dishonesty to split the firm's divorce bill of ~£115,000 into three parts, enabling the client to dishonestly finance £44,000 of his own divorce costs via his company and its pension fund. The Tribunal found the allegations substantiated (uncontested) and expressly noted the conviction involved dishonesty and that he had cheated others including the pension fund. Despite high-calibre references, full reparation made, and the influence of a manipulative client, the Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered costs of £1,372.40.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations

Aggravating factors:

• Convicted of three offences of false accounting involving dishonesty
• Sentenced to a term of imprisonment, bringing the profession into disrepute
• Deception described by the trial judge as carefully done with much thought to avoid it coming to light
• Conduct at the highest end of the scale of conduct unbefitting a solicitor
• Cheated others, including a pension fund, by allowing money to be extracted when he knew nothing was owed

Mitigating factors:

• Seventeen years' previously unblemished and successful career
• High-calibre testimonials and oral character evidence
• Full reparation plus interest made to the company and pension fund
• Persuaded against his better judgement by a manipulative client with prior criminal convictions
• Isolated incident; respondent and family suffered considerable hardship and humiliation