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It is becoming increasingly difficult to make sense of sentencing decisions coming out of the SRA and SDT. Some cases which do not look very serious attract swingeing penalties and other cases which look very serious indeed result in a fairly modest fine (or a settlement agreement between the solicitor and the SRA).

Much of this seems to be attributable to fact that it is not clear when the SRA is going to allege dishonesty. In this instance, "this was not a dishonesty case, as that allegation had been withdrawn by the Applicant at a separate hearing on 6 July 2017". Nevertheless, "the Tribunal found the Respondent had created a backdated letter containing statement which she knew to be untrue" (judgment, paragraph 36).