Check out the primary source! https://solicitorstribunal.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/12914.2026.Appahoh.pdf
Professional restrictions have a long memory, especially when client money has gone wandering.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has refused to lift conditions on Queen Appahoh’s practising certificate after finding that the risks which justified them had not been sufficiently reduced. She had been suspended for a year in 2020 after being found grossly negligent in relation to a major client loss at her former firm.
The original case involved a client paying $2.4m into escrow. All but $200,000 was dissipated through unauthorised transactions. The tribunal did not find that Ms Appahoh had acted deliberately, and dishonesty was not the point. The point was gross negligence: a serious failure to meet the care expected where client money and legal trust are involved.
That distinction matters. Dishonesty is the profession’s red alarm. Gross negligence is not a cosy yellow one. A solicitor can be honest and still unsafe in a role involving client money, management or compliance. The public is not protected by good intentions if the controls fail and the money disappears.
The conditions prevented her from acting as a manager or owner, holding a compliance officer role, holding client money or working for a firm without SRA approval. Ms Appahoh argued that time had passed, she had complied with obligations and the restrictions damaged her ability to work. She said they created the false impression that dishonesty had been found.
There is real force in the human point. Conditions can turn into professional frost. Jobs become harder to secure. Employers see restrictions and stop reading before the explanation. A sanction meant to protect the public can also make rehabilitation feel like walking uphill in wet shoes.
The tribunal still refused the application. It was concerned by what it described as limited insight, including her treatment of the financial loss and omissions in her application. It also found there was not enough evidence of recent relevant training, sustained practice, structured supervision or clear oversight arrangements.
For firms, the case is another client-money warning. Escrow and client account work must be treated like handling explosives in a library: calm, recorded, supervised and never casual. The sums are too large, the trust too central, and the consequences too public.
Regulation allows second chances. It does not owe anyone a shortcut back to unsupervised risk.
Author: Marcelo Williams
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