Stumped: Solicitor’s dishonesty was a “moment of madness”
A solicitor who acted for a cricketer jailed for spot fixing has been cleared of an allegation that he encouraged his client to offer false evidence in his defence.
However, Shahid Ali was fined £40,000 after admitting that he had dishonestly misled his client’s wife about money he was holding on his behalf and failed to comply with the accounts rules while doing so.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) decided that the case fell into the limited ‘exceptional’ circumstances where the usual sanction for dishonesty – striking off – should not be applied.
While ‘Client A’ was not named in the ruling, the dates cited indicate that it was Nasir Jamshed, a former Pakistani international cricketer.
In December 2019, he changed his plea to guilty during the trial at Manchester Crown Court for conspiracy to bribe players in the Pakistan Super League and in February 2020 was jailed for 17 months. He had already been banned from playing for 10 years by the Pakistan Cricket Board.
The change in plea followed the playing of a covert recording of a conversation in Urdu and English which took place at a meeting in a Birmingham restaurant in January 2017.
Client A’s case was that he understood the discussion at the restaurant, which took place in both English and Urdu, to be about setting up a business for the sale of cricket equipment in the UK and Pakistan, referred to subsequently as ‘the cricket bat defence’.
He said he had understood little of what was discussed as he was not fluent in English.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) alleged that Client A had told the truth about his guilt to Mr Ali from the outset, and that the solicitor had asked him to fabricate the cricket bat defence.
Further, the SRA alleged, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) served further evidence of WhatsApp messages in October 2019 that indicated Client A’s guilt, Mr Ali “was trying to make up a story to explain the messages and lie about them in court”.
The allegations were supported by the evidence of Client A and his wife, ‘Person A’.
Mr Ali, who qualified in 1995 and was a partner at Manchester firm Osborn Knight, insisted that on Client A’s instructions a positive case for the defence could be put forward.
The SDT found that Mr Ali’s position was supported by a paralegal who worked for him as well as counsel Mohammed Nawaz KC (then a junior representing Client A), both of whom said Mr Ali had not encouraged Client A to fabricate a defence.
The SDT determined that it should approach the evidence given by Client A and Person A “with caution”; it was “feasible that Client A’s evidence was motivated by his wish to improve his position in relation to pending immigration proceedings”.
It did not accept the assertion that Mr Ali had told Client A to fabricate the cricket bat defence.
Mr Ali was also cleared of misleading counsel about the content of the crucial audio recording.
As an undercover officer featured in it, Mr Ali and Client A were not given a copy of it; Mr Ali was instead allowed to listen to the audio at a secure location in August 2019.
The following day, he told counsel that the transcript which had been provided was a fair translation and that the parts of the translation noted as inaudible or undecipherable “are very much that”.
However, when the recording was “unexpectedly” played to the court, those parts were actually audible.
Mr Nawaz understood Urdu, as did a member of the Pakistan Cricket Board present in court, and they recognised that the conversation was evidence of Client A’s guilt.
They alerted the CPS and Client A then changed his plea to guilty.
The SRA said Mr Ali had provided a “woefully inadequate and misleading assessment” of the recording.
The SDT rejected this too as it could not determine what Mr Ali, who was fluent in Urdu, “did or did not hear when he listened to the recording”.
Though the solicitor had referred to the Urdu conversations as “unhelpful”, the SDT was not sure whether this meant ‘not determinative’ or ‘detrimental.’ On the balance of probabilities, the SRA had not proved its case.
The National Crime Agency had seized £5,500 in cash during a raid on Client A’s house but returned it to Mr Ali, on behalf of Client A, in September 2017. Client A also gave Mr Ali £15,000 in cash around October 2019, the purpose of which was unclear; Mr Ali said his client had asked to hold on to it for safekeeping and instructed him to mislead Person A as to its whereabouts, if required.
This he did, telling Person A that he was still awaiting the first sum back from the CPS, while the second sum was for legal fees – when Client A was legally aided.
The SDT found that Mr Ali had been dishonest. “It was open to Mr Ali to have indicated to Person A that he could not deal with queries about the cash without instructions from Client A, but he chose instead to give misleading information.”
He also admitted failing to record Client A’s money in a client ledger, return it promptly and maintain proper accounting records.
The SDT did not accept his argument that these breaches were merely technical – breaches of the accounts rules “were always serious and not administrative in nature”.
In deciding on sanction, the tribunal found the case to be “genuinely unusual, to such an extent that it was justified in departing from the presumptive sanction of a strike off when dishonesty had been proved”.
It accepted that Mr Ali believed he was following his client’s instructions, and that doing so was his paramount responsibility – but he was “genuinely mistaken in this assumption”.
“This was coupled with genuine concerns about whether his client’s marriage would survive his client’s imprisonment, which meant he believed he was acting in his client’s best interests by retaining the funds.
“Mr Ali’s misleading of a third party occurred during an isolated period and amounted to a ‘moment of madness.’ There was no pattern of such behaviour, risk of repetition, or risk to the public.”
But he was in “material breach” of his obligations and the SDT decided that a fine of £40,000 was appropriate.
The SRA sought costs of £50,000 but was awarded £30,000 given the failure to substantiate some of the allegations.
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