Margaret Bridget Hetherington & Patrick Clement Hetherington

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

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found two sibling solicitors, partners/directors in the Hetherington Partnership Limited, had between 2011 and 2017 acted for thousands of purchaser clients buying parking spaces and storage pods in 'Group First' investment schemes, with over £101 million passing through the Firm's client account. The Tribunal found the First Respondent (conveyancing fee earner) failed to give adequate advice on the contractual documents (COS reservation forms with 100% non-refundable deposits, headleases, subleases, and worthless buyback option agreements), failed to act in clients' best interests, and preferred the Firm's income stream over clients' interests, creating an own-interest conflict. The Second Respondent, as partner and COLP/COFA/MLRO, failed to cause proper advice to be given and failed his compliance duties. The Tribunal found both Respondents acted DISHONESTLY, holding that the deliberately limited advice was designed to keep transactions proceeding and preserve the Firm's main income source, and that ordinary decent people would consider this dishonest. Both were struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £98,000 on a joint and several basis (reduced from £113,797.24 claimed). A subsequent High Court appeal was dismissed.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Act in the client's best interests
• No own-interest conflict
• No conflict between current clients
• Cooperate openly with regulators

Aggravating factors:

• Proven dishonesty
• Conduct deliberate, calculated and repeated over a number of years and over 6,000 transactions
• Significant financial harm caused to vulnerable clients who lost substantial sums
• Harm to the reputation of the profession
• Evasive evidence and deliberate failure to answer questions
• Misleading response to Client KB's complaint (falsely denying he was a client)
• Ignoring multiple Action Fraud and SRA warning notices

Mitigating factors:

• Previously unblemished careers
• No previous disciplinary matters