The Solicitors Regulation Authority has expanded the practice restrictions placed on Andrew Milne, the London solicitor convicted of stalking earlier this year, adding a prohibition on all real property work to the supervision condition already imposed on his 2025/26 practising certificate.
Milne, principal of Andrew Milne & Co Solicitors and admitted to the roll in 1986, was convicted on 10 February 2026 at Stratford Magistrates’ Court under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, following a seven-day trial. District Judge Lisa Towell found that he had sent approximately 124 separate communications to legal blogger Daniel Cloake between March and August 2024, including emails described by the court as containing aggressive threats of litigation and uninvited sexual innuendo.
He was subsequently sentenced to a two-year community order, 300 hours of unpaid work and a seven-year restraining order, with the judge noting he had shown no remorse whatsoever. The SRA moved swiftly after the conviction, with an adjudicator imposing an interim supervision condition requiring that Milne not act as a solicitor without oversight from an SRA-approved practitioner.
The new condition, announced on 15 June 2026, goes further. A second SRA adjudicator has determined that Milne may not practise in real property law, covering both contentious and non-contentious work. The SRA confirmed the two conditions run concurrently, addressing distinct risks, and take immediate effect for the remainder of the practising year. Jonathan Peddie, the SRA’s executive director of investigations, enforcement and litigation, stated that the regulator has serious concerns about wider allegations made against Milne, and that public protection is its priority.
Those wider allegations are substantial. Bolton West MP Phil Brickell raised Milne’s conduct in the House of Commons, stating that South Yorkshire Police had arrested him on suspicion of fraud and blackmail in connection with his acquisition of residential freeholds in the north of England. Brickell described constituents being threatened with court proceedings unless they paid thousands of pounds to purchase freeholds from Milne. Sheffield MPs Louise Haigh and Abtisam Mohamed also wrote to SRA chief executive Sarah Rapson urging suspension following the stalking conviction. Andrew Milne & Co has previously denied any impropriety in relation to its leasehold and freehold activities.
For solicitors and law firm management, the Milne matter offers a pointed illustration of how the SRA’s interim conditions regime operates in practice. The regulator’s power to impose layered, concurrent conditions addressing separate risk areas — and to carry those conditions forward automatically on annual certificate renewal — means restrictions can accumulate and harden without a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing.
Firms should note that where a principal faces criminal conviction or parliamentary scrutiny, the SRA’s investigations, enforcement and litigation directorate may move on multiple fronts simultaneously, with conditions taking immediate effect and no fixed review timetable. The ongoing SRA investigation into both the stalking matter and the leasehold allegations signals that further regulatory action, potentially including referral to the SDT, remains possible.