Henry Charles Adrian Syms

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

Mr Syms, a director and owner of Lee Syms Ltd (trading as Swain & Co), admitted three allegations relating to retaining Legal Aid Agency Statutory Monthly Payments containing professional disbursements in office account and using them to run the firm, creating a minimum client account shortage of £263,508.45 and leaving third-party suppliers owed over £647,000 when the firm went into administration in November 2020. He admitted recklessness on allegations 1.1 and 1.3. The SRA alleged dishonesty in the alternative but, given the agreed strike-off sanction, the Tribunal approved withdrawal of the dishonesty allegations and made no finding of dishonesty (only lack of integrity). The Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered costs of £6,582.88.

Duties found breached:

• Act only on proper, lawful instructions
• No conflict between current clients
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Reckless conduct in material breach of obligations
• Respondent and firm benefited from use of client and public money
• Misconduct continued over a period of some 5 years
• Conduct was deliberate
• Client account shortage of £263,508.45 not replaced (peaked at £610,621.07)
• Knew/ought to have known the use of disbursement money was a material breach

Mitigating factors:

• Cooperated with the SRA investigation
• Made early admissions
• Inherited improper practice from predecessor firm and believed it acceptable
• Accountant's reports did not warn him conduct was so fundamental firm should cease trading
• Was unaware of obligation to remedy breaches promptly until told by Sam Palmer

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]