Raja Shazad Khan & Colin Anthony Goldring

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

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal approved an Agreed Outcome in relation to Colin Anthony Goldring, an unadmitted consultant/registered trainee at Justice Solicitors Ltd (trading as Tangent Law). He admitted causing/allowing the firm to provide an improper banking facility to Client A (a purported foreign royal), paying away up to €8,310,780 without Client A's knowledge/consent, failing to conduct due diligence and AML checks on high-value motorcar transactions, and falsely signing a settlement agreement endorsement claiming to be a 'relevant independent legal advisor' for Client B. The SRA was granted leave to withdraw the sole dishonesty allegation (concerning Client B) after the respondent belatedly provided an explanation and medical evidence; the Tribunal found no real prospect of proving dishonesty. The Tribunal imposed a section 43 order for public protection and, in the particular circumstances, imposed no fine. He was ordered to pay £13,000 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• AML and crime-prevention compliance
• Honour professional undertakings

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct related to considerable financial loss which harmed a client
• Damaged the reputation of the legal profession
• Client A paid €9,400,000 into client account and never received the cars or most of his funds back
• Earlier non-engagement with the SRA's investigation

Mitigating factors:

• Full admissions made to substantive allegations
• Consented to a section 43 order
• Only one isolated instance of conduct lacking integrity (Client B), unrelated to Client A matter
• Effectively an unadmitted clerk who was never provided the promised training contract and was unsupervised
• Medical evidence (Consultant Psychiatrist) explaining life issues affecting judgement and earlier non-engagement
• Events occurred over four years ago with nothing known to his detriment since
• No intention of returning to the legal profession
• Claimed to have made no gain from the admitted breaches
• Complete insight and apology offered

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]