Roger Pitts-Tucker

• Application 9722-2007
• Admitted 1973
• Hearing 18 December–13 November 2008
• Reasons 11 August 2009

The SDT ordered that the respondent, of Pitts-Tucker & Co, 2 Priory Court, Pilgrim Street, London EC4V 6DE, should be suspended from practice for six months to commence on 1 March 2009. The respondent had been guilty of conduct unbefitting a solicitor and in breach of his professional obligation in rule 1 of the Solicitors Practice Rules 1990 not to do anything in the course of practising as a solicitor which compromised or impaired, or was likely to compromise or impair, the solicitor’s independence and integrity, the good repute of the solicitor and the profession, and the solicitor’s proper standard of work in that, in the course of practising as a solicitor for BFI Ltd and/or Mr B he had acted in about 13 transactions in the period 1999 to 2003, the details and circumstances of which were summarised below, whereby his client had purported to sell and convey feudal titles to third parties, notwithstanding that the transactions were dubious in that they bore indicators of possible fraud as more particularly detailed below; the respondent had known that to be the case; the respondent had known that the purpose for which his client had involved him as a solicitor during the above period was to lend credibility to the client and the transactions, and he should have known that he was assisting the client in taking unfair advantage of the other party to the transaction; he had known that the other party to the transaction had no separate legal representation, and had had no or no adequate opportunity to satisfy themselves as to his client’s right to convey the feudal title or as to the effectiveness of the conveyance before parting with their money; he had known that his firm’s role in the transactions was being misrepresented to the purchasers but had failed to take any steps to correct that and had failed to advise them to instruct their own solicitor; the circumstances were such that the respondent should have suspected that his client was not intending to convey, and could not convey, good title or, indeed, any rights to the feudal titles that were the subject of the transactions; the circumstances were such that the respondent should have suspected that the transactions were not effective to convey the feudal titles; the respondent had failed to make such enquiries as he should have made, as more particularly detailed below, so as to satisfy himself as to the bona fides of his client and of the transactions; the respondent had continued to act for the client in circumstances where he should have declined to do so no later than the autumn of 2002; he had made deceitful representations to third parties and/or prospective purchasers calculated to lend credibility to the transactions and/or to his client and/or to encourage the prospective purchaser to enter into the transactions, not having known that the transactions were dubious at the outset, but having come to be apprised of their true nature; the respondent had made a deceitful representation to Mr G as to the Law Society’s position regarding KGF’s complaint; he had purportedly taken statutory declarations when the maker of the statutory declaration had not been present and in matters where he was acting for one of the parties in the transaction or his firm was otherwise interested; he had purportedly witnessed the transferor’s signature to deeds of transfer when the transferor had not signed the deed in his presence; and further in conducting himself in the manner set out above the respondent had acted with conscious impropriety and therefore dishonestly (in that the respondent’s conduct was dishonest by the ordinary standards of honest behaviour and he knew that he was transgressing those standards). The SDT had concluded that the feudal title transactions were dubious and that the respondent had on a number of occasions been put on notice of that. Whilst there was a market for such titles, it was a controversial, even eccentric, market and it was the manner in which the respondent had allowed those transactions to be conducted by ‘rubber stamping’ his client’s paperwork that had compelled the SDT to conclude that the respondent’s conduct was dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people. The SDT was satisfied so that it was sure that the respondent had turned a blind eye to the nature of the transactions, the nature of his involvement in them and the questionable bona fides of Mr B and his business. The respondent knew that what he was doing was dishonest by those same standards. The SDT accepted that there was a time when the respondent had not known that there was anything dubious about the transactions, but that position had changed as the respondent had been repeatedly put on notice of concerns about his client’s activities. The SDT had carefully weighed the need to protect the public against the respondent’s particular circumstances. It had taken into account the fact that the profession’s regulator, while being fully aware of the nature of the respondent’s conduct, had granted him unconditional practising certificates and had permitted him to continue in practice over a substantial period time. The SDT had found delay on the part of the SRA in prosecuting the case and that was a matter to be taken into account when deciding on the proportionate sanction to be imposed. The SDT had also taken into account the respondent’s good character exemplified by his references and that the conduct complained of was out of character. The respondent was ordered to pay costs of £80,000.