Jade Heloise Dupont

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

Jade Heloise Dupont, a solicitor, was found guilty of professional misconduct on five averments arising from acting on instructions from TM to be appointed Executor Qua Creditor over the estate of a person who had died 20 years earlier, on the basis of a fake promissory note and fake death certificate. She failed to make adequate investigations, ignored red flags, acted on a prescribed debt, made reckless and misleading averments in a court petition (breaching integrity), and acted in a conflict of interest transferring property at undervalue to a company controlled by TM, facilitating his fraud. The Tribunal expressly noted there was no averment of dishonesty and found lack of integrity rather than dishonesty, so did not consider strike-off or suspension. She was censured, fined £1,000, and had her practising certificate restricted to acting as a qualified assistant under supervision for at least two years, with expenses awarded against her.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• Act only on proper, lawful instructions
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct spanned some 14 months
• Breach of integrity
• Conduct likely to damage reputation of the profession
• Failures allowed TM to perpetrate a fraud
• Public put at risk

Mitigating factors:

• No previous findings of misconduct
• More than 20 years in practice without incident
• Insight and remorse; described as mortified and contrite
• Full cooperation with proceedings and Joint Minute agreeing all facts
• Favourable testimonial
• Intended to pay compensation to deceased's widow
• Respondent herself a victim of TM's fraud