The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has cleared a third solicitor named in a Daily Mail report involving undercover journalists pretending to seek help for asylum claims.
Muhammad Afzar Ahmad, admitted in April 2013, was working at Birmingham-based Kingswright Solicitors Limited, which was intervened into in 2023, when three undercover reporters attended the office. They covertly recorded the meeting.
One of the journalists posed as an undocumented migrant who had arrived in the UK illegally while the other two reporters posed as relatives.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority claimed Ahmad told the journalist he ‘should claim he left his home due to fear for his life’ or arrange ‘what would effectively be a sham marriage’.
Ahmad denied the allegation. The SDT found both allegations not proved and cleared Ahmad.
Mansoor Fazli, for Ahmad, in his closing submissions, said: ‘The allegations and consequences that have flowed have had a devastating impact on [Ahmad’s] life. He added: ‘It is not a criminal offence or improper for an undocumented migrant to form a relationship in this country with a person legally entitled to be here. There is nothing improper in law for the solicitor to advise that a person who is unlawfully here is able to form a genuine relationship.’
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The SDT heard there was ‘nothing in the transcript or videos’ where Ahmad could be heard referring to a sham marriage or where his words could be interpreted as such.
Fazli added that Ahmad’s responses in regard to a relationship was as a result of him ‘being asked by the journalist to explore the…ways…to remain in this country’ and he was ‘explaining his understanding of the law or the process’ and he was ‘not encouraging’.
Panel chair James Johnston said in an ex-tempore judgment that the journalists had gone ‘beyond the instructions’ given by the newspaper to ‘essentially be reactive rather than proactive’ adding that a ‘prime example’ was when Ahmad was asked if he knew a matchmaker which ‘contradicts the instructions the Daily Mail had given’.
There was no evidence to show Ahmad had suggested the illegal migrant should provide a false narrative and there was nothing else ‘that would suggest this either’, the SDT said. Although ‘it was clearly inappropriate for [Ahmad] at one stage to suggest providing contact details for the daughters of another client’, he had done so ‘in response to the direct request’ from one of the journalists. No details were actually provided and Ahmad suggested speaking to the local priest or temple which, the SDT said, are ‘entirely appropriate or legitimate routes’.
‘The respondent was being overly helpful and lost sight he was providing advice as a solicitor and not a member of the community, but we do not find he was providing a false narrative of sham marriage.’
The SDT dismissed the allegations and made no order as to costs.
Following two separate hearings last year, the SDT cleared two other solicitors named in the Mail's 2023 sting operation: Rashid Ahmad Khan, admitted in 2009, and Muhammad Nazar Hayat, admitted in 2013.
