Tag Archive for 'law-gossip'

On the naughty step

Published
by
NL
on 12/06/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 37 Comments

The family firm.

It has such a reassuring sound, redolent of values of client care handed down through the generations, and the energy of youth brought under the careful supervision of wisdom. The very best traditions of the local small firm, a foundation stone of the community.

Or not.

Karim Solicitors, consisting of Imran Karim (40), supposedly senior partner, his sister Saira (39) and their mother Shamim (65) have all been struck off the roll in one fell swoop, after leaving a trail of dishonesty proceedings and panicking liability insurers behind them.

Exhibit A, Zurich Professional Ltd v Karim & others, (see page 3 of this pdf) in which Zurich sought, successfully, to avoid liability on claims for misappropriated funds by clients on the basis that the claims arose out of dishonesty and/or fraud, primarily by the first defendant, Shamim Karim, who was found to be the controlling power behind the firm. For the detailed factual background to this case see paras 28 – 33 of this account [PDF]

Exhibit B, the SDT, following a decade long investigation, struck all three off the roll (in their absence). Dishonest use of clients’ money, to the tune of £840,000 was not the only problem.

The money, Imran said, had been spent by him on “a Rolex, loose women and drink”. However, his sister Saira took a more prudent approach and invested her money in business ventures, including the ‘Miss Nude UK’ beauty contest. [See BBC story here, featuring Saira as 'founder']

Sadly ‘Miss Nude UK’ proved to be the beginning of their downfall, when in 1999, company documents for the ‘beauty contest’ arrived at the Law Society in an envelope from Karim Solicitors, who then denied all knowledge.

Imran and Saira had put all the blame on Mommy Dearest, who had been found to be the dominant force in Zurich v Karim, but, as in that case, the manner in which the brother and sister had corruptly permitted Shamim to run the firm was enough to damn them. All three were culpable. Interim costs order of £75,000 made.

The Karims have the right to appeal the SDT decision and are apparently intending to do so.

[edit 13 June] This just gets better. See this newspaper story. Imran had a serious premiership footballer and Krystal habit. Saira set up Miss Nude UK with Nick Reynolds, the son of Great Train Robber Bruce ‘Butch’ Reynolds. Despite being on Sky TV, Miss Nude UK wasn’t enough to rescue the situation, particularly as Saira had also also put money into a ‘failed music business’.

Mind you, there was the alleged apartment in New York and the ‘large home in Esher’ (Ahh, fragrant Esher) to console her. Document shredding and claims of being authorised to take mortgage holders money (Eh?) were not enough of a defence.

After a series of raids beginning in 1999 investigators found £450,000 had been misappropriated from the proceeds of a house sale belonging to clients Mr K and Miss D.

A further £390,000 had been taken from mortgage cash advanced by Northern Rock to Mrs Binu Govindan, who sold her home in Brighton Road, Purley and was buying a property on Woodcote Valley Road.

I’ve said it before and will say it again, it is always the conveyancers you have to watch…

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On the naughty step

Published
by
NL
on 01/06/2008
in Various (non-housing)
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naughty step badgeOn the naughty step this week is Susan Orton, a conveyancing assistant at Harold G Walker in Bournemouth, at which her husband was a senior partner. Mrs Orton made away with £79,655 from the firm’s client account over 2 years, after blowing £30,000 from the family savings.

In mitigation Mrs Orton blamed the stress and long hours of her job, saying that it caused her to seek relief on the fruit machines at the local Gala Bingo. Her counsel said:

Such was the stress that she turned to gambling and was out up to five nights a week spending up to £500 a night. She spent £100,000 of their own money.

Mrs Orton was jailed for 10 months and Mr Orton left the firm.

I’ve said it before, it is always the conveyancers you have to watch.

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Butterfingers

Published
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NL
on 08/04/2008
in Various (non-housing)
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In what must be probably the worst experience a paralegal could ever have, Penny Wadsworth has inadvertently caused the collapse of a 5 defendant, £100,000 drugs trial [Guardian Report]. The ‘Kennington Rastafarian Temple’ trial had been running for 4 weeks when a police officer recognised Wadsworth, a paralegal on the defence team. The officer recognised Wadsworth from earlier enquiries and recalled that she had made a telephone complaint about drug dealing at the Temple, prior to the raid and arrests.

Wadsworth had failed to disclose her complaint or its content to her firm, or the defence counsel. When defence counsel was informed, and told the client, unsurprisingly the client ‘felt he could no longer have complete confidence in the neutrality of his firm of solicitors’, as the judge put it.

The judge called Wadsworth to appear before the Court, but decided that, although the result of her non-disclosure was ‘catastrophic’ for the trial, no action would be taken against her. After the prosecution decided not to offer any evidence or to seek a retrial, the defendants were acquitted.

Oddly enough, Wadsworth had apparently worked for a city firm for 20 years before turning to a criminal firm. A rough introduction and I suspect she may now be an ex-paralegal. Although considering that she did achieve her client’s acquittal, maybe not.

One must have sympathy. It might not have been the birghtest course of (non)action she took, but we do all make errors of judgement at some point. The idea that such an error would result in a dressing down in open court and the collapse of a high profile trial is the stuff of sweat-soaked-blanket nightmares.

On the other hand, the irony content of the eventual effect of her complaint about drug dealing at the Temple is so overwrought as to be a ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ plot (a reference that few born after say 1975 will get. Strewth, I’m old.)

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Badness in courts, of courts and of law lecturers

Published
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NL
on 29/11/2007
in Various (non-housing)
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A quick outline of a busy news day…

What Price JusticeThe Court of Appeal says that (some) provisions of the Legal Services Commission’s Unified Contract are unlawful, specifically the most sweeping of the unilateral amendment clauses. The judgment is pretty devastating, finding for the Law Society on all points of its appeal of the earlier Judicial Review finding and against the LSC on their appeal. As a sample:

The power to amend (in this contract) is better characterised as a power to rewrite the contract.

Permission for the LSC to appeal refused, costs against the LSC. The judgment is here [pdf] and the Law Society’s comment here. What this will mean in practice, we will have to see…

Leeds Magistrates Court is to be investigated for failure to execute bench warrants when Defendants turned up on other harges and other matters. BBC video here.

And then, managing to offend the laws of God, man and academia in one fell swoop, we have lay preacher, law lecturer and convicted fraudster Malcolm Edwards-Saye, the self-styled Lord Houghton. He was involved in a £51 million VAT carousel fraud and was also convicted of stealing £18,000 from PI claimants via Claims Direct. Worth noting that disclosure failures on the part of the Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office meant that another 8 defendants walked on the carousel fraud. Top work.

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Ooops – disproportionate strike-out

Published
by
NL
on 05/11/2007
in Housing law - All, Succession and secure-tenancy
. 0 Comments

A certain amount of amusement has been circulating around London housing firms at the Court of Appeal judgment in London Borough of Southwark -v- Onayomake [2007] EWCA Civ 1426 (Bailii link, or link to WLR case note here, but may only be briefly freely available).

Or perhaps Schadenfreude would be the more accurate term. Mr Onayomake had a substantive defence and counterclaim to a possession claim on the basis of succession. Southwark said, slightly bizarrely, he was a tolerated trespasser. DJ Zimmels at Lambeth County Court gave directions for a fast track trial, including filing Pre Trial Checklists. The Defendant’s solicitors failed to file on time. A Case Management Conference was listed for a fortnight later. The Defendant’s representative was late. By the time they arrived, DJ Zimmels had already struck out the Defence and Counterclaim. An application for relief was then dismissed at the hearing of the (now undefended) claim for possession. A possession order was made.

Somewhat surprisingly, an appeal was dismissed by Mr Recorder Widdup, so onwards to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal held, quite rightly I think, that striking-out was a disproportionate sanction for the failure to file PTR and lateness by the legal representatives. Although a claim in negligence against the solicitors was an option for the Defendant, it hardly would compensate for the loss of his home. The DJ was plainly wrong and the Recorder should have said so.

Now, Hartnells took the case to the Court of Appeal. I am presuming, perhaps wrongly, that Hartnells weren’t the unfortunate firm the represented the Defendant in the possession claim. Granted that these things can happen to any of us, but in a mischievous spirit, does anybody know who did? [Edit - the Bailii Judgment identifies the unfortunate firm].  The second element of Schadenfreude, of course, concerns the DJ. Enough said.

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Honest Guv, it's a genuine da Vinci.

Published
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NL
on 07/10/2007
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I am once more indebted to Victorian Maiden for noting the arrest of a senior partner in the recapture of the Madonna of the Yardwinder, violently lifted from Drumlanrig Castle four years ago.

Calum Jones of HBJ Gateley Wareing in Glasgow, a specialist in corporate finance and corporate insolvency, was apparently arrested in the course of a meeting with an insurer, a valuer and an art expert, and the painting was found in HBJ’s offices. HBJ say there was “an interesting, but benign, explanation” for Mr Jones’ involvement. Interesting, it should be. Mr Jones insists that he was helping with the painting’s ‘repatriation’.

VM wonders how difficult it is to say ‘give it back’. But the world of high end art theft and/or ransom is a very murky one, as the many recent cases involving paintings by Munch, Carravaggio and others tend to demonstrate. Once big money from insurance companies is involved, let alone the inherent shadiness of the art world, (oh and criminals) nothing is quite what it seems, including whether the painting is a Leonardo da Vinci at all.

For instance, what of the involvement of both the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency in the raid. Has SOCA incorporated the old Art Theft team? Was this a set up, or tip off? If so, by whom? Was the £1 million reward (presumably put up by the insurance company) involved?

What on earth was the painting doing on the premises of HBJ? That, by itself, would tend give a certain credence to Mr Jones’ version of affairs. It wouldn’t be the first time that a third party has acted as go between for the thieves and the insurers. But then what the hell was a corporate finance partner doing in this sort of set up?

Add in the second solicitor arrested, Marshall Ronald, who has, as VM notes, a very interesting history, and events get even murkier.

The Scottish police announced that the painting recovered has been examined and ‘found to be genuine‘. Well, for certain limited values of genuine. It is hotly disputed whether the painting is a Leonardo da Vinci, or a ’studio of…’. There are three versions of the painting in existence and Leonardo rarely if ever duplicated his own work. Many consider the Drumlanrig to be a ’studio of’, not a Leonardo. From the photos, I can see why. I’ll bet there have been some very intense discussions over insurance value, which the Duke of Buccleuch will have to repay if he wants the painting back.

This one should get even more unclear if and as the story comes out.

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Busted

Published
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NL
on 06/10/2007
in Various (non-housing)
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In one of the least surprising brassiere related decisions ever by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, Daniela Scotece has been struck off the roll.

Ms Scotece, an erstwhile criminal defence solicitor at the Nottingham Johnson Partnership, was convicted in April of passing cannabis to a client by smuggling it in to the cell at a Magistrates hearing. The cannabis was concealed in her bra, but that didn’t stop a sniffer dog. Possibly even worse, from the Court’s point of view, she had abused the judicial process to get her client to court.

For some reason the Guardian has now decided she hid the drugs in her knickers, but never mind. I did rather like the Judge at her trial reportedly saying ‘she had completely blurred the line of professional conduct‘. A bit beyond blurring, I’d have thought, as supplying illegal drugs isn’t really a professional grey area.

Also busted is the Government for failing to follow Cabinet Office guidelines in publishing the results of consultation on its proposals to restrict the powers of the Court of Appeal in criminal cases. The Government had failed to make public the fact that senior appeal court judges, the council of circuit judges and the Criminal Cases Review Commission all thought this was a cretinously bad idea.

The measures, restricting the powers of the Court to overturn a guilty verdict where there were procedural faults in the process if the Court still thinks that the Defendant did it, are going for a second reading in Parliament.

Let me just get this clear for myself. If you are convicted as the result of a flawed process – meaning that pre-trial or trial was not carried out properly – your conviction will not be overturned if the appeal court thinks you most likely did it anyway, which can only be on the basis of… well, the evidence in the flawed trial? Brilliant.

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Hyman and Doughty Street

Published
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NL
on 19/09/2007
in Various (non-housing)
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Doughty Street Chambers have a press release on their front page about Bruce Hyman. It reads:

There have been several false press reports that Bruce Hyman, a barrister who has pleaded guilty to an attempt to pervert the course of justice, was a member of Doughty Street Chambers. Mr Hyman was in fact a pupil, attached to Doughty Street Chambers only for a few months of his training period, having successfully completed a 12-month pupillage at Blackstone Chambers. He resigned before he could be considered for membership of Chambers and nobody here had any inkling of his criminal behaviour.

Frankly they should have said so earlier, as the rest of us were left to make do with items such as this, this (third column from the left, bottom), this and this, some of which are from Doughty Street, all of which clearly identify Hyman with Doughty Street or ‘at’ Doughty Street.

Certainly rumours have been circulating about Hyman and Doughty Street since news of his guilty plea broke. That would have been the time to clarify matters.

Although this actually makes matters murkier. Some accounts say that Hyman only resigned from Chambers when told to by the Judge in the criminal proceedings. Does this mean he was still a pupil at that point? Was he therefore a pupil when he was acting in the case that was his downfall?

Nice smearing of Blackstone Chambers in the press release, though.

[Edit 20/09/07. In the comments to this post, a barrister with knowledge of the history has confirmed that Hyman was a pupil, probably third six, and given some background to the mitigation argument and Hyman's resignation from Chambers.]

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Coming soon – Hyman, the Prison Diaries

Published
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NL
on 19/09/2007
in Various (non-housing)
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So Bruce Hyman got 12 months for perverting the course of justice, thanks VM for the details. The Beeb has a photo of Hyman looking furtive, as well he might.

That may be longer than other media people have received for looking at child porn, but I have to agree with VM that, considering Hyman was entirely prepared to see the opponent he framed go to prison, it doesn’t seem like quite enough. Perhaps a new charge of ’stamping repeatedly on justice’s weeping face while laughing maniacally’ should be introduced for these occasions.

One presumes he will now be disbarred without further ado.

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The summer of dodgy lawyers continues.

Published
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NL
on 26/08/2007
in Various (non-housing)
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An extraordinary tale in today’s Observer.

Bruce Hyman, a practising barrister, has pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice. The full story is at the link, but what apparently happened was that Hyman, representing a client in a family case (over access rights), went to a Tottenham Court Road computer shop and emailed a bogus judgment to the other side – the father, appearing in person. The email purported to be from Families Need Fathers and the judgment apparently supportive of the father’s case.

The father naturally presented the judgment at the Court hearing, at which point Hyman pounced, suggesting the father was responsible for forging the judgment. The father was left facing a charge of perverting the course of justice and costs.

Hyman’s downfall only came about because the father managed to trace the IP address of the origin of the email and obtained CCTV footage from the computer shop for the relevant day, which, to his astonishment, showed Hyman using a laptop. Finally, he managed to get the police interested.

Hyman didn’t have a family practice and was apparently acting for a friend and business partner in the case. Reportedly, he continued to work on the case after being arrested.

Just to keep it topical, Hyman is the chairman of a big media production company (and a mate of Clive Anderson) and had relatively recently turned to the law (This was one of his first cases). It seems that a media attitude to veracity is a transferable skill.

Choice quote from an anonymous ‘acquaintance’:

He was in love with the law in the same way that some middle-aged men are in love with the idea of being a rock star.

Nearly Legal is fairly sure that his own ‘middle-aged’ turn to the law is not the equivalent of air guitar and inappropriately tight trousers, but who knows?

[Edit. Google suggests that Hyman was involved with mental health law and at Doughty Street Chambers. He does not/no longer exists on Doughty Street's website. For anyone who doesn't know, Doughty Street is a major Human Rights Chambers. Oh dear.]

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