A solicitor has been suspended and ordered to pay costs of more than £7,000 after failing to ensure the firms books of account were maintained in compliance with Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) rules and acting with “reckless” conduct.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) found that John Cruickshank, a sole practitioner at Geoffrey Hill & Co, had breached a number of principles during the period of 1 February 2022 and 14 October 2024, including failing to maintain proper and compliant books of account, failing to carry out regular and compliant client account reconciliations and continuing to operate a client account while knowing the firm’s books were “unreliable”.
An anonymous report was received by the SRA in August 2023 concerning the condition of the firm’s accounting records and a forensic investigation was launched.
The outcome of the investigation found that the firm’s accounting records had not been maintained in a compliant or accurate manner and that no compliant three-way client account reconciliations had been undertaken since January 2022.
Client ledgers were found to be handwritten, incomplete and materially out of date, there was no accurate list of client balances and accountants’ reports had not been obtained since the end of March 2021.
The review of the firm’s records identified an unresolved difference of £591,385.40 between stated client liabilities and funds held in client account as of 31 March 2024.
Due to the conditions of the records, the investigating officer was unable to determine if this balance was a shortage or a bookkeeping discrepancy.
Cruickshank confirmed that he was responsible for maintaining the firm’s books of account and acknowledged that the books had not been brought up to date and reconciliations had not been undertaken.
He attributed the situation, during in representations in October 2024, to a “period of ill-health” and acknowledged that his records had fallen out of date, as well as accepting responsibility for further allegations.
The solicitor apologised for breaching SRA accounts rules and instructed auditors to assist him in bringing the books back up to date, as well as to prepare any outstanding accountants’ reports.
Following Cruickshank’s admission, auditors Magma Audit LLP highlighted that the firm’s books had not been updated for several years and said that reconstruction of the records was an “almost impossible” task.
The SRA intervened in October 2024, when agents discovered that the most recent client account reconciliation had been completed in January 2022, there was no client balance listing and that client ledgers were handwritten, inaccurate and out of date.
During intervention, £935,104.17 was recovered from the client account and by March 2025 the SRA had received 31 claims relating to the firm – some paid, some pending and some closed.
The SRA determined that Cruickshank was “culpable for his own actions by failing to seek help when it was clearly necessary”, noting that he had additional responsibilities due to his experience as a solicitor and his role as sole manager, the COLP and the COFA of the firm.
Mitigating features were highlighted as being Cruickshank’s age and his ill-health during the time of the breaches.
He was suspended from practice for nine months from 20th August and was ordered to pay costs in the sum of £7,726.50.
Following the expiry of the suspension, Cruickshank will be subjected to conditions on his practice for a period of one year.
