Margaret Ugo Nwojo

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

The Respondent, a solicitor, was convicted at Lewes Crown Court on 13 counts of theft, forgery and deception after taking cheques payable to her firm, altering the payee to her own name and banking them, plus false accounting. She was sentenced to a 200-hour Community Punishment Order and ordered to pay costs; confiscation was settled at £48,000 and civil claim at £130,000. She admitted the allegation of conduct unbefitting a solicitor. The Tribunal found a planned course of dishonesty and, despite mitigation and a plea for suspension, struck her off the Roll and ordered costs of £3,177.79.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations

Aggravating factors:

• Planned course of dishonesty
• As a solicitor she knew how to resolve the dispute by proper means but did not
• Newton hearing found she had not told partner she intended to direct monies to herself

Mitigating factors:

• Self-reported the matter to the Law Society
• Numerous references from clients and others
• Out of character
• Genuine underlying contractual dispute with employer (owed benefits)
• Completed community punishment exceeding minimum hours
• Practised without complaint since 2002