It was the Applicant’s case that the Respondent was not legitimately pursuing a non-molestation order on behalf of his client which required her to send him explicit images of herself to his own mobile phone and that he had done so for his own sexual gratification. In doing so he had taken advantage of a person he had known to be vulnerable.

The images were never saved onto the Firm’s case management system, contrary to the assurance the Respondent had given to his client that he had done so. The Respondent made no records in the form of attendance notes on the client’s file in relation to his request and in the event never applied for the non-molestation order.

It was the Respondent’s case that he had required the images to protect his client from her ex-husband carrying out an act of ‘revenge porn’ and that the images had been required to support an application for a non-molestation order. Whilst accepting that he had known his client to be vulnerable, he had not obtained the images for his own gratification, and he had not been dishonest.

The Respondent did not request that the SRA have its witnesses available for cross-examination. In the normal course of events and in such circumstances the Respondent would be deemed to have accepted in full their witness evidence, however, in his own evidence he disputed aspects of their evidence. This resulted in the Tribunal adjourning the matter to hear argument as to how it should proceed in the circumstances and the parties were requested to address matters set out in Griffiths v TUI UK Ltd [2023] UKSC 48 .

The Tribunal later found all allegations proved on the balance of probabilities.