Paul Treacy handed two-year erasure after referring himself to Arb’s professional conduct committee

An architect has been struck off from the register after forming a romantic relationship with a trainee colleague and helping her to cheat on her part III exams.

Paul Treacy was handed a two-year erasure by the Architects Registration Board in a ruling of the regulator’s professional conduct committee last week.

Arb logo

Paul Treacy was handed a two-year erasure order last week

Treacy has designed award-winning projects in London including an outpatient facility for University College London Hospitals and the New Halo Building Laboratories and Main UK Headquarters for HSL in Central London. 

He is the founder and design director of London-based Paul Treacy Architects, with previous jobs include director at Corstorphine & Wright and senior architect at Farrells, where he was project leader on a transport hub building at Incheon International Airport in South Korea.

Arb launched an investigation into Treacy after he referred himself to the regulator. The committee was told Treacy had helped to draft a junior colleague’s case study for her RIBA part III exams, provided the colleague with the exam questions before the exam and provided “model answers” to the exam questions.

Treacy, who had been the colleague’s office mentor and exam supervisor, said the incidents had been a single lapse of judgement and denied there had been an “ongoing pattern of behaviour” during his 30-year career.

Handing down its ruling, the panel concluded Treacy had demonstrated “repeated and premeditated individual acts of dishonesty at various stages of the RIBA process”.

It said Treacy had “abused the trust placed in him by RIBA” by making “conscious and repeated decisions” to assist his colleague, referred to as Person A, over a period of time.

“His actions allowed Person A to gain an unfair advantage during her Part Three assessment process and ultimately submit a Case Study that was not entirely her own work and provide answers in the examination that were not her own,” the committee said.

The panel concluded Treacy’s breaches of the code of conduct were “sufficiently serious to impact adversely both the reputation of the Registered Person and the profession generally”.

Treacy can apply to rejoin the register after two years. He has been contacted for comment.

Topics