Respondent AH

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

The Respondent, a solicitor admitted in 2009, was convicted of making thousands of indecent photographs of children (categories A, B and C) and of arranging and facilitating the commission of child sex offences. He received a 19-month suspended sentence, a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order and was placed on the sex offenders register. By agreed outcome, the Tribunal found the admissions properly made and, given the seriousness of the criminal offending, held that the only appropriate sanction was to strike him off the Roll, plus costs of £4,002. No express finding of dishonesty was made.

Duties found breached:

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

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct was sexually motivated
• Misconduct occurred over a long period (9,824 indecent images over 10 years)
• Direct control over his actions
• Severe harm to victims of sexual abuse shown in the images
• Knew or ought to have known misconduct breached obligation to protect the public and profession's reputation

Mitigating factors:

• Substantial rehabilitation efforts including Lucy Faithful Foundation Course and 92 therapy sessions
• Attendance at Sex Addicts Anonymous since June 2019
• Developed insight and shown genuine remorse
• Previously of good character
• No offending since indictment period some four and a half years ago