Godwin Okri

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

Godwin Okri, an unregistered barrister, faced three charges of professional misconduct. Charge 1 arose from a 2004 conveyancing transaction while he practised as a solicitor, for which the SDT found him to have acted dishonestly and struck him off the roll of solicitors in December 2008. Charges 2 and 3 concerned his failure to report those SDT findings to the BSB and failure to co-operate. The tribunal, proceeding in his absence but with QC representation, found all charges proved. Because the matter involved dishonesty, the starting point was disbarment; finding no alternative, the tribunal disbarred him on all charges and ordered payment of £1200 costs (half the sum sought).

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Report serious misconduct of others

Aggravating factors:

• Pre-meditated conduct involving a series of breaches
• Not an isolated occurrence - persisted in the conduct
• Victim was an elderly, vulnerable woman who, with her daughter, lost substantially
• Serious breach of trust as a solicitor
• Lack of insight into the harm caused and little remorse
• Failure to report the misconduct compounded the matter

Mitigating factors:

• Age of the events (transaction 17 years earlier)
• Admission of the charges
• Previous good character (of limited value in this context)
• Delay in proceedings, partly caused by BSB errors