Akhtar: Helped plot revenge for client (Photo: West Yorkshire Police)
The criminal defence barrister who helped a gangster trace a gunman who tried to assassinate him has been jailed for three years and three months.
Samreen Akhtar, 38, showed “a complete disregard for the standards that are expected of those in the legal profession”, the police said.
In September 2021, her client, Tabish Ali, was shot and injured in an incident in Huddersfield.
She was recorded on a telephone call to him the following day putting forward a plan to find and injure the person responsible for the shooting.
In December 2020, Ali committed a murder in the town, for which he was charged in October 2021, convicted in July 2022 and jailed for life.
That trial was told the murder came as part of an escalating ‘turf war’ between drug-dealing gangs, which had involved multiple violent and firearms incidents since 2018.
The attempted murder of Ali in 2021 was believed to have been linked to this.
Ms Akhtar was arrested in February 2022 and charged in March 2023 with encouraging or assisting the commission of an indictable offence, namely inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, under the Serious Crime Act 2007.
She denied the offence but was convicted by a majority jury verdict following a five-day trial in June this year.
Detective Inspector Paul Hutchinson, who led the investigation, said: “As a professional working in the criminal justice system, Samreen Akhtar would have been acutely aware of her legal and moral responsibilities, but she chose to act outside of those to plot revenge with a dangerous criminal involved in a violent gang feud which includ9ed the brutal execution of a rival, for which he was later convicted.
“In doing so, she became a criminal herself and showed a complete disregard for the standards that are expected of those in the legal profession, and also for the significant negative impact that gang-related violence and criminality have on our communities.”
Following her conviction, the Bar Standards Board suspended Ms Akhtar, who was called to the Bar in 2010.
In 2020, the Bar Council selected Ms Akhtar as one of 10 social mobility advocates, as part of its #IAmTheBar campaign which celebrated the achievements of young barristers who had attended state schools and grown up in deprived areas.
Ms Akhtar grew up in Huddersfield, the daughter of a mechanic. She was the youngest barrister on the Midlands Circuit at the time she completed her pupillage.
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