Andrew Cooper
Introduction
Andrew Cooper was a partner in the probate department at Streathers Solicitors LLP. He was struck off the roll of solicitors after a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found he had made multiple unauthorised uses of client account funds and engaged in ‘deceptive conduct’ toward HMRC — including sending the tax authority a letter carrying a client’s electronic signature and then denying the firm had sent it. The matter came to light in September 2022, when a client complaint led the firm to refer it to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Cooper did not attend the tribunal hearing or submit evidence in mitigation.
Background Information
As a probate partner, Cooper worked in an area of practice that depends directly on the integrity of client money: estates pass through the firm’s client account, and executors and beneficiaries rely on the solicitor’s handling of funds to which they are entitled. Between 16 August 2019 and 20 September 2022 — the period later examined by a forensic investigation officer — Cooper was making payments from client ledgers that had no client authority, paying his personal tax liabilities out of client funds, and moving money between the firm’s client and office accounts. The scale of the movements only became apparent after a complaint by a client prompted the firm’s referral to the SRA in September 2022.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The findings described here are a matter of tribunal record: the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found Cooper’s conduct dishonest and struck him from the roll after he did not attend or submit evidence. These are regulatory findings, not criminal convictions: he was never criminally charged.
In early 2023, a forensic investigation officer identified that between 16 August 2019 and 20 September 2022 Cooper made numerous unauthorised payments from client ledgers. Seven transfers totalling £76,652.82 went to HMRC for his personal tax liabilities. Forty-two improper payments to clients and third parties produced a net client-account shortage in excess of £1 million. And on thirty-four occasions he transferred money from the client account to the office account without client authority.
The deception toward HMRC centred on a letter sent on 27 June 2022 on an estate file. Cooper substituted his home address for the client’s and applied her electronic signature to the letter. When the client failed HMRC security checks and queried the correspondence, Cooper wrote to HMRC denying that the firm had sent any such letter, and deleted the copy from his computer.
A September internal review found the deleted letter on his hard drive. Confronted, Cooper admitted creating and sending it, apologising that he had believed he could “manage the matter more effectively” by receiving HMRC correspondence at home. At a second internal meeting two days later, when the irregular payments were put to him, he stated “I am absolutely f*****d”, left, and did not return.
Public Reaction and Consequences
Cooper did not attend the SDT hearing and submitted no mitigation evidence. The tribunal found him in breach of SRA Principles 2011 (2, 6, 10), Solicitors Accounts Rules 2011 (r.20.1(f)), SRA Principles 2019 (2, 4, 5) and SRA Accounts Rules 2019 (r.5.1). It held his conduct dishonest, and concluded that striking off was the only proportionate sanction given the deliberate, repeated misuse of client funds and his deceptive conduct toward HMRC. He was struck from the roll and ordered to pay costs of £29,451.29. The findings are the tribunal’s own, made in his absence, on the evidence placed before it.
Current Status
Andrew Cooper has been struck from the roll of solicitors and can no longer practise. The findings against him — dishonesty, the unauthorised payments, and the deception of HMRC — are regulatory findings of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, not criminal convictions; he was never criminally charged. The costs order of £29,451.29 remains payable, and the tribunal’s judgment stands as the authoritative record of what occurred at the firm between 2019 and 2022.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Strike-off ends Cooper’s career as a solicitor and, with it, his partnership in the probate department at Streathers. The tribunal’s findings describe conduct at the most serious end of the disciplinary spectrum: a partner using client money as his own over a three-year period, leaving the client account short by more than £1 million, and then lying to the tax authority and deleting the evidence when a client began asking questions. His absence from the hearing left the account of his own words — the apology about managing matters more effectively, and his reaction when the payments were raised — unchallenged in the tribunal’s record.
Sources
- Today’s Wills and Probate, “Probate solicitor struck off after using firm funds to pay tax bill”, 6 February 2026. source