Swiss solicitor has been suspended from practice for two years after he breached anonymity orders imposed by the First-tier and Upper tribunals.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found three of the four allegations against Matthew Thomas Parish, admitted in September 2000, proved.
Parish was found to have: made complaints about his client’s conduct to security and intelligence organisations and offered to retract them if the client paid his fees; published or allowed to be published press releases relating to his former client accusing them of fraud; and published decisions of the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal on his website in breach of anonymity orders.
The tribunal found that in breaching the court order, in offering to withdraw reports and in breaching the anonymity order Parish lacked integrity.
A further allegation of threatening legal action against a firm for making a report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority was found not proved.
Considering sanction, the SDT judgment said that Parish, who self-reported to the SRA, ‘showed no insight into his misconduct’.
It added: ‘He had also risked significant harm to Person A in publication of the Immigration Tribunal decisions in contravention of the anonymity order. The tribunal found that those publications, in breach of court orders were deliberate and were designed to cause the maximum possible harm. The tribunal found that Dr Parish had no regard to orders of the court.’
