A personal injury solicitor faked documents to divert his client’s settlement payments into a company with links to his wife, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has found.
Fasar Mahmood, a consultant with West Yorkshire firm Tyler Hoffman, told the client she had been awarded £3,800 when in fact the claim had settled for £8,500 plus costs. Mahmood then created false documents including invoices and correspondence to pay £2,555 to a company called Core Rehab for physiotherapy and a psychologist’s assessment. This was deducted from the client’s settlement figure but she stated she never requested or received any such services.
Solicitors Regulation Authority investigators found that Mahmood’s wife was the sole signatory on one of Core Rehab’s bank accounts - the account to which the £2,555 was transferred.
Following a one-day hearing at the SDT which Mahmood did not attend, he was struck off and ordered to pay £25,000 costs.
The tribunal noted that Mahmood had admitted to all the allegations and found he had embarked on a ‘course of calculated and outright dishonest behaviour’.
The client denied even knowing the company Core Rehab, let alone using its services. None of the purported rehab or expert report services was included in the schedule of costs sent to the insurer, and the SRA concluded that all documents on the file in support of payments to the company were false.
Tyler Hoffman had instructed Core Rehab in numerous personal injury matters but Mahmood was the only fee earner to use the company. The firm said it understood Mahmood had ‘good working relations’ with the third party.
Over a four-year period the firm paid a total of £266,000 into four Core Rehab bank accounts for different PI matters. During his interview, Mahmood had expressed surprise at the suggestion that his wife had anything to do with the company, but payments were found to be made to a Core Rehab account owned by her and then transferred the same day into her personal bank account.
Falsified documents included a telephone attendance note which stated that Mahmood had spoken to the client to discuss her injuries and that she had requested physiotherapy treatment. Another note said that the solicitor and client had discussed the costs and she was happy to accept deductions from her settlement.
Mahmood, 35, advanced mitigation which was mostly redacted in the tribunal judgment. He apologised to his family, the profession, the public and the client specifically.
After leaving Tyler Hoffman, Mahmood became a director of Huddersfield law firm Fraser Masood Ltd. Companies House records show he resigned from this position last October.
