A solicitor’s 40-year career in the profession has been ended following his conviction for sexual assault. Timothy Luckhurst-Matthews was today struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after he accepted there was no prospect of him contesting the outcome.
Luckhurst-Matthews was an in-house solicitor at The Thompson Group in Newcastle when he was found guilty on a charge of sexual assault following an incident in December 2022.
He had pleaded not guilty to the offence but was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court in March last year and subsequently jailed for 10 months, with the sentence suspended for two years.
Luckhurst-Matthews was also required to register with the police for 10 years and handed a restraining order until 2030 preventing him from having any contact with the victim.
It was reported at the time of his sentencing that the solicitor had groped the woman by thrusting his hand inside her Christmas jumper. She had cried at him to stop and he withdrew his hand after five seconds. Judge Carolyn Scott said Luckhurst-Matthews’ actions were ‘inexcusable’, shocking and ‘egregious’, and that he had lost his good name as an upstanding member of the community, solicitor and devout Christian.
The tribunal heard that Luckhurst-Matthews had unsuccessfully appealed his conviction in January and then sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. There was no update on the progress of this challenge.
No details of the offence were read out in today’s hearing and the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s prosecuting statement was redacted to avoid jigsaw identification of the victim.
The SRA told the tribunal that the public would not expect a solicitor to act in the manner he did, and that his conviction had attracted adverse publicity in the national press which undermined trust in the legal profession.
He told the tribunal he accepted the conviction prevented him from working again as a solicitor. He pointed out that when he self-reported the matter to the SRA he had offered to have his name immediately removed from the roll, meaning the matter could have been dealt with a year ago.
The tribunal agreed that he should be struck off and ordered him to pay £4,000, adding that proceedings could have concluded more economically if the SRA had taken into account Luckhurst-Matthews’ proposal.
