Nicholas Giles Collins

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

Nicholas Giles Collins, an experienced solicitor at Russell Jones & Walker and later Slater & Gordon, misled his client EH about the progress of her personal injury claim against the Inland Revenue/HMRC over a 17-year period. He made 258 false and misleading statements and created fabricated documents (fake counsel submissions, court hearing notes, a third-party debt order application, and enforcement correspondence) falsely representing that a £360,136.10 award had been made and court/enforcement proceedings were underway, when he had taken no substantive steps to advance the claim. He admitted all allegations and admitted dishonesty. The Tribunal, dealing with the matter on the papers via an agreed outcome, found the admissions properly made, expressly found dishonest conduct, and determined that striking off was the only reasonable and proportionate sanction, with no exceptional circumstances. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £6,316.20.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No conflict between current clients
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Repeated dishonest conduct over approximately 16 years
• Deliberate, calculated and planned misconduct
• Creation of false documents to support false narrative
• Significant breach of trust placed in him by client EH
• Experienced solicitor (approx 20 years PQE) with sole conduct of the matter
• Knew or ought to have known conduct breached obligations to protect public and reputation of profession
• Serious harm caused; client's claim now likely statute-barred

Mitigating factors:

• Full co-operation with SRA investigation
• Extensive early admissions during S&G investigation
• Previously unblemished 20-year career / clean disciplinary record