Daily Mail: Undercover operatives led discussion
All three solicitors accused by the Daily Mail [1] of offering to help an undercover reporter concoct false asylum claims have now been cleared of misconduct.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) found that the evidence did not support the allegations that Muhammad Azfar Ahmad told his prospective client, supposedly an illegal immigrant, to create a “false narrative” or go through a sham marriage.
The SDT recorded how Mr Ahmad had eventually ended up on universal credit because of the financial problems caused by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) shutting down his firm, Kingswright Solicitors in Birmingham.
After the newspaper’s front page story in July 2023, the SRA closed the three firms [2] named after receiving the recordings and transcripts from the newspaper. The heads of each were referred to the SDT [3].
The SDT cleared the other two, Rashid Ahmad Khan [4] and Muhammad Nazar Hayat [5], in separate hearings last year, accepting that both had held introductory meetings and had not given formal advice.
Mr Ahmad qualified in 2013 and set up Kingswright four years later. In June 2023, he met with three people who were undercover operatives from the Daily Mail, one of whom posed as a recently arrived illegal immigrant with no legitimate asylum basis, who wanted to know what could be done to regularise his status.
Though the newspaper told the operatives not to ask leading questions, or suggest an asylum claim, and, if asked, to make clear that there was no lawful basis for an asylum claim, the SDT found that at certain points in the discussion they “led or proactively framed the discussion”.
The SRA’s allegations required proof that Mr Ahmad suggested that the conduct should, as opposed to could, occur and the SDT found that the evidence did not reach that threshold.
While some of the solicitor’s responses were “ill-judged”, it was not satisfied that he “gave a prescriptive direction that a false narrative should be advanced”.
He gave “illustrative examples, often in response to prompts introduced by the operatives, rather than directing that any particular account should be fabricated”.
Mr Ahmad also gave “repeated caveats that asylum for Indian nationals was weak and ‘not in his hands’.”
Similarly, “the tribunal was not satisfied that [Mr Ahmad] suggested that the operative posing as a client should enter into a marriage despite the absence of a genuine relationship.
“The passages occurred while [he] was discussing lawful family routes and evidential requirements in response to operative-led prompts, rather than directing a sham arrangement.”
But the SDT refused Mr Ahmad’s application for costs. “No evidence had been placed before the tribunal to support the suggestion that the SRA had been unduly influenced by the publicity the case attracted or by the intervention when deciding to bring the proceedings,” it said.
The proceedings had required oral evidence to be heard, along with a “careful analysis” of the videos taken and translations of the conversation, which was held in Punjabi.
“The tribunal further noted that there had been no applications by the respondent for strike out or submission of no case to answer by the respondent in support of the contention that the proceedings had been misconceived.”
As a result, there was not good reason to depart from the established position that there be no order for costs when allegations were dismissed.