Dishonest solicitor from Manchester struck off following tribunal
A solicitor from Manchester has been struck off after he was found to have acted dishonestly.
Timothy Ackrel was also found to have been involved in a number of dubious transactions at a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
All of the allegations against Ackrel were found proven at the hearing held by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) last week.
An order was made for Ackrel to be struck off the roll of solicitors and for him to pay £41,325 in costs to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
The tribunal found that while in practice as an in-house solicitor at EPG, ALD and DS7, between November 2013 and June 2016.
He was found to have:
• Facilitated payments of investor funds to third parties, without apparent justification.
• Continued to act in circumstances where he knew or ought to have known that, as a result of said payments, the schemes were unsustainable and that further, incoming investments were thereby at risk.
• Drafted, executed and-or registered legal charges against six development sites in circumstances where he could not have had any reasonable belief in the validity of the liabilities said by the charges to have been outstanding.
• In all the circumstances, acted in schemes which bore the hallmarks of dubious transactions.
• Facilitated improper money movements with indicators of potential money laundering in breach of Outcome 7.5 of the SRA Code of Conduct 2011.
The SRA, which brought the case claimed that Ackrel had also been dishonest.
Ackrel was a former director at DS7 Ltd, which was the official source of funding for a bid to turn East Lane House in Runcorn into 448 mainly studio flats.
He was also a director until his resignation in July 2015 at 2380 Reversions.
