Solicitors Regulation Authority v Main

Professional disciplinary sanctions are protective rather than punitive. The tribunal must protect the public, maintain the reputation of the profession and preserve public confidence in its integrity. A low risk of reoffending does not dispose of the separate question whether public confidence would be harmed by allowing a solicitor with recent serious convictions to practise.

There is no automatic rule that suspension must continue for the duration of criminal-court orders, including notification requirements or a restraining order. The period must reflect the circumstances of the individual case. A period during which the solicitor did not practise may be relevant, but it cannot simply be deducted from an otherwise appropriate disciplinary suspension.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority appealed under section 49 of the Solicitors Act 1974 against a sanction imposed by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal on a solicitor convicted of sexual assault and racially aggravated assault. The respondent admitted breaches of Principles 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011.

The Tribunal imposed suspension until 4 January 2019, having taken account of the respondent’s period out of practice, the low risk of reoffending, and the absence of a sexual harm prevention order. The central issues were whether the Tribunal had properly considered public confidence and whether it was entitled to deduct the period during which the respondent had not practised.

1. Appeal allowed. The Tribunal’s sanction was quashed. The respondent was suspended from practising as a solicitor until 23 January 2022 and ordered to pay the appellant’s costs, summarily assessed at £9,404.56.
2. The disciplinary sanction was protective, not punitive. Its purposes included protection of the public, maintenance of the reputation of the profession, and preservation of public confidence in the profession’s integrity. Personal mitigation therefore carried less weight than in criminal proceedings, following the approach in Bolton v The Law Society [1994] 1 WLR 512.
3. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was an expert tribunal whose sanctioning decisions required considerable respect. The High Court could interfere only where the sanction was clearly inappropriate. The burden lay on the appellant to establish that threshold, applying Salsbury v The Law Society [2009] 1 WLR 1286.
4. The Tribunal was entitled to regard the risk of reoffending as low. That did not answer the distinct issue of public confidence. It was necessary to ask whether an informed public, knowing the relevant facts, would have confidence in the profession if a solicitor recently convicted of serious sexual and racially aggravated offences, and still subject to notification requirements and a restraining order, were permitted to practise.
5. There was no inflexible rule that suspension must coincide with criminal-court orders. Nor was there a presumption that notification requirements prevented practice. Those matters were nevertheless important factors. The Tribunal failed properly to address them and thereby erred in principle.
6. A period during which a solicitor had not practised could, depending on the circumstances, assist him. It could not simply be deducted from the period otherwise required for professional protection. In this case, the Tribunal’s resulting suspension of less than one year was clearly inappropriate. A four-year suspension from the Tribunal’s decision was required.

• High Court (Administrative Court): Allowed the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s appeal from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s sanction. The suspension was quashed and replaced with suspension until 23 January 2022.