Terence Ronald Sommers

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

Terence Ronald Sommers, a solicitor's clerk, had been found guilty of criminal contempt of court by the QBD Divisional Court for interfering with a witness in Industrial Tribunal proceedings and sentenced to one month's imprisonment. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found the allegations substantiated and made a Section 43 order restricting his employment by solicitors without Law Society permission, and ordered him to pay the costs of the application. The Tribunal expressed sympathy, noting his long unblemished service, and hoped the Law Society would carefully consider any future application for his employment.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct involved interfering with witnesses in pending proceedings
• Resulted in a custodial sentence of one month

Mitigating factors:

• Long service in the law (some thirty years) as police officer and criminal law clerk without a previous stain on his character
• Accepted the findings and the inevitability of the order
• Received a police commendation
• Suffered significant personal loss including bankruptcy and loss of his home equity
• Third party dealings were involved; he was not directly responsible for what happened