A solicitor, whose ‘cherished sole practice’ was destroyed by fraudsters who duped her into letting them work for it, has been suspended from practice for 18 months.
Stefanie Anne O’Bryen, admitted in 1982 and sole owner of Watlington Solicitors in Oxfordshire, caused or allowed ‘Asad Sahi’ - in fact a disbarred barrister with a criminal conviction for conspiracy to commit fraud called Yawar Ali Shah - and ‘Edward Elkins’, who was believed to be struck off solicitor Peter Hastings, to conduct legal services for the firm without undertaking adequate due diligence. The fraudsters were named in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal judgment as 'the London group'.
Sahi and Elkins both produced false ID documents when asked, and were vouched for by a practising accountant and several other solicitors with current practising certificates.
O’Bryen told a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal that she believes Sahi ‘carefully manipulated and groomed her’ into believing that he was trustworthy and a competent lawyer.
But she accepted she failed to carry out ‘rudimentary identity checks’, which led to her in 2022 and 2023 recruiting staff that a reputable law firm would seek to avoid. O’Bryen was not aware until August 2024 that 'Sahi' was in fact Yawar Ali Shah.
In April last year the Metropolitan Police contacted the Solicitors Regulation Authority to explain that Newham Council had recovered bags of documents fly tipped into public bins, containing 17 client files from the firm. In an interview with a forensic investigator from the SRA, O’Bryen stated she did not know how these files ended up in a bin in Newham. The documents contained client matters being carried out by members of the London group showing a ‘poor standard of service’.
These documents showed work undertaken for clients with no source of funds checks, no client identification documents and in one instance a copy of a grant of probate for a deceased person whom O’Bryen had no idea whether the firm actually represented.
The tribunal said in its judgment: ‘The respondent has suffered greatly (physically, mentally and financially) as a result of the destruction of her cherished sole practice by ‘Asad Sahi’ and his associates.
‘She lost the chance to hand over her practice to another local firm, so had to pay a run off cover premium to close down. She has incurred fees in relation to two negligence claims, unbilled disbursements and other matters, as well as her own legal fees. The total to date is just over £100,000, not including the SRA costs of £25,000 being claimed.’
The SDT imposed a fixed term of suspension on O’Bryen for a period of 18 months and an indefinite restriction order.
