Stephen Michael Oakley

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

Stephen Michael Oakley, a conveyancing solicitor and money laundering officer of Oakley and Davies Limited, was convicted in 2018 of three offences of failing to comply with the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 (failing to conduct customer due diligence on a property purchase that facilitated a client's mortgage fraud) and one offence of failing to surrender to bail. The SRA and Respondent agreed the matter by Agreed Outcome. The Tribunal found he breached Principles 1, 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011. It was expressly accepted that he did not act dishonestly; his conduct was reckless. Given the criminal convictions, recklessness, and his prior disciplinary record, the Tribunal ordered him struck off the Roll and to pay agreed costs of £2,000.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No standing bail or surety for client
• AML and crime-prevention compliance

Aggravating factors:

• Both allegations involved commission of a criminal offence
• Recklessness in failing to comply with Money Laundering Regulations
• Three failures under MLR continuing over a period of time
• Failure to surrender to bail was deliberate; high culpability
• Knew or ought to have known his conduct breached obligations to protect the public and reputation of profession
• Four previous disciplinary matters including a prior three-year suspension

Mitigating factors:

• Voluntarily self-reported to the SRA as soon as permissible
• Made open and frank admissions at an early stage and cooperated with investigation
• No dishonesty alleged or found
• No adverse consequence to clients
• Events occurred a considerable time ago and he had not practised since November 2011