The SRA has failed, dismally and spectacularly, to keep the public fully informed about the cause of the mysterious closure of the PM Law group on 2nd February 2026. The SRA’s biggest failure is that it has kept secret the fact that the cause of this catastrophic law-firm failure was the theft of a significant amount of client money from the PM Law group’s firms’ client accounts.
The theft was apparently committed by the group’s financial director Jonathan Bostock (according to one of the PM Law directors).
Bostock had been the Chief Executive of PM Law since February 2012. He had also been the Group Head of Finance and Administration of Proddow Mackay Solicitors (part of the PM Law group) since April 2003.
Jonathan Howard Bostock, was arrested on Friday 6th February and released on bail. It is believed that both his and his wife’s bank accounts have been seized and that the SRA and the SFO are allegedly working on the case.
It is not known exactly how much of the PM Law group’s clients’ money was stolen by Bostock, or for how long he had been dipping his sticky fingers in the supposedly-sacrosanct clients’ bank accounts. But according to another PM Law director, the criminal investigation into Bostock and his illegal activities within the law firm’s client accounts are being kept secret.
The SRA’s website states:
“We were alerted to the unexpected closure of PM Law Ltd on Monday 2 February. We launched an immediate investigation to make sure client interests are protected properly. As a result of our initial investigation, we have taken the decision to intervene into the group of firms. We are working to quickly gather relevant information that can be shared with those that have been impacted.“
But far from acting quickly, decisively or transparently, the SRA has failed to share with PM Law clients the fact that Jonathan Bostock had confessed on Friday 30th January 2026 to stealing (“a substantial amount of”) clients’ money. The SRA also omitted to admit that it has failed – as the supposed regulator of law firms – to prevent this awful tragedy. SRA rules state that client money should be:
“kept separate from firm money, held securely in a dedicated client account, and used only for specific, intended purposes related to legal services. Funds must be available on demand, returned promptly when no longer required, and cannot be used as a banking facility”
But what checks did the SRA make to prevent this tragedy from happening within the twenty-firm PM Law group? Obviously, none at all. The SRA should have checked that nobody at the PM Law group was stealing clients’ money. Instead, the SRA left it to the very person responsible for stealing this money to “self regulate” by reporting that clients’ funds were safe.
On Monday 2nd February 2026, the whole PM Law group closed suddenly and “unexpectedly”. A group of more than 20 law firms – mostly involved with property conveyancing, personal injury and motor insurance claims – closed its doors and put more than 600 people out of work. This left thousands of clients “orphaned” and unable to progress their legal matters – including house moves.
What remains a mystery, however, is why the SRA has not kept the public in general and PM Law group clients in particular informed about all of this. Why hasn’t the SRA told the victims that Jonathan Bostock has confessed to stealing this money? It should not be kept secret – especially from the very victims whose money has been stolen.
This matter should be kept squarely in the public domain and all affected clients should be kept fully abreast of this crime. People whose money (property purchase deposits for example) has been stolen have a right to know. The SRA and the SFO have no right to keep this from them.
A Facebook group called “PM Property Lawyers / PM Law Victims” has been set up to give those affected some support and a voice. Victims have told the group horrendous stories of how they have suffered due to aborted house moves and not being able to access their deposit for their new home and not being able to pay off their previous mortgage. The distress this has caused thousands of victims is truly appalling.
Hello, can you say which force arrested Mr Bostock please?
What was it on suspicion of?
Who did he confess to and when?
Thanks!
David Walsh
The Star
Sheffield
I reported this firm in 2021 to the SRA due to them taking over a lot of firms who were already being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office and being struck off from the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. Many of the trading names were companies involved with a previous fraud… Despite this the SRA said they had no concerns
Thank you for this comment. It would be very interesting to know more about the companies which had been involved with a previous fraud – and why the SRA didn’t view that as concerning. This does concern the whole legal profession as it undermines the public’s view of what should be the safest profession in the World.
How do I contact you in a more private setting?
We don’t know which force arrested Bostock, but it would certainly have been on the basis of his confession to stealing a large amount of client money from the firm’s client bank accounts. He apparently confessed on Friday 30th January and the SRA and SFO were informed – with all the companies in the PM Law group closing down on Monday 2nd February. This left hundreds of employees locked out of their offices and unable to access their clients’ files. This has had a devastating effect on thousands of victims – PM Law staff, clients and their families. One former PM Law employee has provided some further insight into what happened and why, in a post on the PM Law Victims Facebook group:
“It was only one aspect of what’s occurred. There were many other factors including:
* A major CMC terminated their contract with us in late 2025
* A large settlement had to be paid to a client after negligence
* I suspect the fraudulent activity could have continued for many more months had it not been for this
I’m still not sure whether this was for personal gain, however. I want to believe it was more a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul in order to keep the PM Law group afloat.”
David, You are right to ask those questions. This blog has, imho, not been fact checked but is simply asserted as “fact” (typical of this website btw). I am sure you’ve looked everywhere. My own attempts to find independently reported facts have resulted in nothing official.
There has been NO widely published official criminal charge document(e.g., from police or prosecutors) as of the latest reporting — most public commentary comes from blogs and affected clients rather than formal court filings.
Alleged Charge
The core allegation is that Bostock stole a “substantial amount” of client funds from PM Law’s client accounts, in breach of professional and criminal law duties.
This is understood to be the basis for the arrest, but details of any formal criminal charges filed by police or the Crown Prosecution Service have not been widely published yet.
Confession and How It Became Public
According to reports circulating in victim-support groups and industry commentary, Bostock confessed to the alleged theft on Friday 30 January 2026. This seems very specific tbh. Importantly, this confession has not been officially published by regulators, the SRA, or law enforcement in any formal press release.
Instead, the information has been shared publicly by affected clients and commentators via blogs and social media groups (e.g., Facebook groups for PM Law victims) – and we all know how reliable those sources are – they never reference official sources!
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) itself has not directly confirmed the confession in public-facing official statements, and there are complaints from clients that it has not fully disclosed the details of the breach.
This blog should really make it clear there is no independently fact-checked source to support its content. It isn’t clear who wrote it btw. Normally these blogs are written by Angie but the author’s name has been left out. So I am not convinced she wrote it. Maybe just “hosting” the article?
I also wonder what connection this has to “pension scams” which is the speciality of this website? I don’t get it tbh.
I would prefer this website to get its teeth into the bad decision in August 2025 of the Pension Ombudsman to excuse pension providers of any wrong for not doing any checks beyond statutory checks when dealing with pension transfers. Thousands of victims are now without any means of redress from negligent pension providers of the past 10 years because the PO is using the ruling of August ’25 as a boiler plate response and rejecting all complaints without exception! Basically, the PO is saying it was OK for pension providers to transfer people’s pension into scam schemes (even if warning signs were obvious btw) because they had no legal obligation to operate to industry best practices and had no legal obligation to act in the client’s best interest and have no duty of care. Seriously? Basically, victims who have lost their pension – tough, don’t tell the PO as they aren’t interested and don’t care. The Financial Ombudsman however looks at complaints with different criteria and is still ruling in favour of victims! Two agencies, two opposite rulings. Seriously? How does this work now?
This is imho a bad turn – pension providers however must be heaving a sigh of relief. I would prefer this site to use its influence to see if anyone might fund a judicial review. This isn’t right?
It is now publicly acknowledged that there was fraud. Yet another failure of a dismally-failed regulator – the Stupid Regulatory Authority (or could also be the Slow Regulatory Authority). Add this to the awful failures of the Ombudsman and you have yet another catastrophe where consumers and victims of fraud are unprotected by the State.
Whilst I agree with the sentiment that affected parties ought to be told that their money has been stolen (if indeed it has) the SRA, and everyone else involved has a duty to avoid ‘tipping off’, which is an offence under s.333a of the POCA 2002.
Given that it is likely others were involved in the fraud, as access to a solicitors client account is unlikely to be isolated to one individual, tipping off should be at the top of everyone’s mind.
But tipping off whom? It has already been admitted by the chairman of the PM Group – Donald James Mackay – that Bostock had stolen the clients’ money (1.4m GBP is the figure being quoted in the press – although I’ve no idea where they got that from). Also, more than 100 of PM Law’s clients were also Pension Life’s clients. So it is my duty to report what I know about how, why and by whom they were disadvantaged.
Angie claims in a comment dated 18th Feb :”It is now publicly acknowledged that there was fraud.”. Yet on 16th Feb, just two days earlier, the SRA issue a press release, https://news.sra.org.uk/news/news/press/pm-law/ saying “We are investigating a potential fraud, including the misappropriation of client money.” … that doesn’t sound like “public acknowledgement” to me it sounds like authorities haven’t yet concluding their investigation and not come to a conclusion. I can find no authorative source for any confession nor actual acknowledgement of fraud nor any “arrest”.
Yet again, this website turns “potential fraud” into “public acknowledgement of fraud” and makes a claim there’s a confession – but doesn’t reference any reliable source. Obviously if there were a confession then it wouldn’t be “potential” … nor require further “investigation” – it would be an open and shut case. Seriously, people need to take this website with a huge pinch of salt! Don’t look for facts here! This is about as reliable as a Donald Trump tweet!
I think you have known me long enough Stephen (ten years) to know that I do not say or write anything unless I have hard evidence and well-founded knowledge. I research everything very carefully and thoroughly before publishing it – and I stand by every word I write. I’ve risked criminal charges myself for being honest, transparent and going public about fraudsters’ actions. Nigel Green of DeVere warned me not to go to Dubai as there would probably be a warrant out for my arrest (for libel/defamation – i.e. speaking the truth). I deliberately and knowingly put myself at personal risk (including death threats) in order to expose fraud.
In the case of PM Law, the Chairman of the PM Law Group – Donald James Mackay – who was also a director of all of the 20 companies in the group, informed me in writing that Jonathan Bostock had confessed on Friday 30th January to stealing clients’ money. I am not easily offended Stephen, but I do take exception to being compared to Donald Trump! I am not a frivolous or irresponsible person and you should know that by now. Take everything I write “with a pinch of salt” if you want – but some people are actually interested in knowing when fraud has been committed.
Don’t forget that neither Phillip Nunn nor Patrick McCreesh of Blackmore Group has ever been convicted of fraud – and neither David Vilka nor John Ferguson of Square Mile/Planet Pensions has ever been convicted of fraud. But I will happily, readily and confidently state publicly that all four of them are guilty of fraud. And I would be utterly astonished if you didn’t agree with me!
Apologies. I will keep my thoughts to myself – I don’t have enough heartbeats left for this… 😉
Nice rant. Is there a violin handy?
1st sentence, for the record I know nothing of the sort.
People can make their own mind up whether a “pinch of salt” is justified or not.
First, read the transcript of the oral testimony of Sue Flood and Dennis Waite at the Parliamentary Inquiry 2nd Dec 2020 “Protecting Pension Savers…” https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1346/html/
Then go listen to a “You and Yours broadcast of 19th March 2020” at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gbhy (starts about 18 minutes 30s in) and hear Terry’s story (about 21 minutes in) and figure out who the “Tax Barrister” is that’s mentioned in the Sue Flood/Dennis Waite testimony. From 2 independent sources, make up your own mind whether: “I deliberately and knowingly put myself at personal risk (including death threats) in order to expose fraud ” … because “…people are actually interested in knowing when fraud has been committed”; is motivated out of a sense of public duty or some other reason? I know what I believe having had personal experience 10 years ago – I coughed up £1500 (like Dennis, Sue, Terry and a victim of a different scam to theirs who I will call CB) – and I had to do all the heavy lifting to get my pension back (as well as CB’s) and the only useful “hard evidence” I got was from an IFA in the Czech Republic who had personal experience with the scammers!
The Mackay letter, imho, just confuses the matter. The question remains, which was correctly asked by the article above: “Why hasn’t the SRA told the victims that Jonathan Bostock has confessed”. Maybe the SRA have no real evidence of a confession? Can Mackay be relied upon or is it just heresay? Who knows? I’m still inclined to take it all with a pinch of salt.
I wasn’t sure what to expect at first, but this turned out to be surprisingly useful. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
What a helpful and well-structured post. Thanks a lot!
You’re doing a fantastic job with this blog.