Milne loses his appeal: the conviction is settled, the regulatory question is not
The criminal finding is now final. What the SRA does with it was always the more interesting question.
Andrew Milne, a solicitor, has lost his appeal against conviction for stalking the legal blogger Daniel Cloake. The appeal was heard over six days at Snaresbrook Crown Court before His Honour Judge Timothy Greene and two magistrates, and was refused yesterday.
The judge's findings are direct. Milne "repeatedly lied" to the police when first questioned, and lied again in his evidence. The court found that he was sexually obsessed with Cloake and became "increasingly threatening as he realised that Mr Cloake was not going to be persuaded to have sex".
The contact ran from March to August 2024. Messages carrying sexual innuendo and requests to meet, a gift on Cloake's birthday, and then a visit to Cloake's home lasting nine minutes, followed by a handwritten note making further sexual references and warning that Cloake could lose his house if Milne chose to bring litigation against him.
The sentence was a 24-month community order with 300 hours of unpaid work and 20 days of rehabilitation activity, and a seven-year restraining order. Compensation was increased from £850 to £1,000 in the Crown court, with £1,300 in costs.
The argument that did not work
The appeal rested on a proposition that appears in harassment cases regularly and rarely succeeds: that if the complainant had genuinely felt harassed, they would have gone to the police sooner.
Cloake had, on the defence case, complained to the SRA before he complained to the police.
The judge dealt with it in two steps. The conduct was "so bizarre and irrational" that the court did not accept Milne would have stopped even if asked. And the home visit was not the beginning of a course of conduct but the end of one that had been running for four or five months.
What decided the case, though, was the comparison of accounts. The court found a "significant contrast" between the witnesses. Cloake answered questions straightforwardly and calmly. Milne's answers were rambling, repetitive, and punctuated by laughter at inappropriate moments. The claims about a sexual relationship at a hotel on the Strand were found "completely incapable of belief". Wherever the accounts differed, the court preferred Cloake.
That is not a technical finding. It is the finding that will travel.
Two processes, two questions
I made a podcast about this case back in June, when the question was how a convicted solicitor could continue to practise. That question has now been answered in part, and the answer is procedural rather than moral.
Milne's criminal appeal is closed. His regulatory position is not. He remains subject to SRA disciplinary proceedings, with a full hearing listed for next year, and a representative of the SRA was in court to hear the judgment.
It is worth being clear about why these run separately, because clients, and occasionally firms, conflate them. The criminal law asks whether a course of conduct amounted to harassment to the criminal standard, on evidence admissible in a criminal trial. The regulator asks a different question: whether this person is fit to be a solicitor, and whether the conduct fell below the standards the profession requires. A conviction will usually answer the second question. An acquittal does not settle it. And the regulatory process does not wait on the criminal one.
The practical consequence is that the findings of fact in a criminal judgment are not the tribunal's findings, but they are not nothing either. Where a judge has found that a solicitor lied repeatedly in evidence to a court, that finding will be in front of the tribunal whatever happens next, and it is likely to be the centre of the hearing.
What a firm should take from it
First, retirement is not a defence. Milne told the court he retired from practice six months ago. The SRA's jurisdiction did not retire with him, and a full hearing is listed for next year. If you are advising a practitioner who is winding down in the middle of a conduct issue, be clear about that.
Second, notification is a decision, and it is better made early. Where a solicitor is charged with an offence, or becomes aware of a matter that could affect fitness to practise, the obligation to notify is immediate rather than eventual. The costs of delayed notification are consistently higher than the costs of notifying.
Third, personal conduct is still conduct. Nothing in the judgment suggests Milne was acting for a client or using client money. It was conduct in his own life, aimed at a person who wrote about his cases. Regulatory reach does not stop at the office door, and the further behaviour sits from ordinary rudeness, the less the private life distinction does any work.
Fourth, correspondents are members of the public. Cloake was a blogger reporting on litigation, and the judgment records that the response to being written about escalated over months. Firms that receive criticism, a complaint or an unfavourable post have sensible options. Turning up at the writer's house is not among them, and it will not be treated as a private matter when it happens.
My view
I think the regulatory hearing matters more than the appeal did, and I would not be surprised if it is the point at which the profession's discomfort with this case becomes concrete. The criminal standard has been met, the findings are detailed, and the SRA will be working from a judgment that has already resolved the credibility question in the starkest terms.
For everyone else, the lesson is unglamorous and worth writing down. Most regulatory trouble does not begin with a dishonest file. It begins with a person who is certain they are in the right, and who keeps going after the point at which anybody else would stop.
If you would like an independent view of where your firm stands on compliance, I offer a complimentary health check, with no obligation. Get in touch and we can arrange a time to talk it through.
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Ashley Barwick, Fraxinus Business Associates. This post is general information and does not constitute legal advice. Fraxinus Business Associates is not authorised to provide legal advice.
Sources
Law Society Gazette, "Liar and fantasist: solicitor loses appeal against stalking conviction", John Hyde, 9 November 2026. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/liar-and-fantasist-solicitor-loses-appeal-against-stalking-conviction/5128482.article
Law Society Gazette, "'This is not a popularity contest', Milne's counsel tells court", 2026. https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/this-is-not-a-popularity-contest-milnes-counsel-tells-court/5128345.article
Further reading and listening on this blog: "Carry on Practising: The Andrew Milne Saga" (podcast, June 2026).
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