Nasir Jamshed’s former solicitor fined £40,000 for ‘dishonesty’

LONDON: Nasir Jamshaid’s former UK solicitor, Shahid Ali of Osborne Knight Solicitors, has been fined £40,000, along with £30,000 in legal costs, by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after being found guilty of dishonesty and serious professional misconduct in his handling of client funds and his communications during Jamshaid’s criminal proceedings.

Ali represented Jamshaid following his 2017 arrest by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) in connection with the 2016 Pakistan Super League corruption investigation. Jamshaid, a former Pakistan international cricketer, was later sentenced to 17 months’ imprisonment after changing his plea to guilty in December 2019 during a trial at Manchester Crown Court.

The complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was brought by Dr Samara Afzal, Jamshaid’s wife. The Tribunal heard that during an NCA search of Dr Afzal’s home, approximately £5,500 in cash was seized and later returned to Ali in September 2017.

Ali failed to record this money in a client ledger and retained possession of it for nearly two years, while repeatedly denying to Jamshaid and Dr Afzal that he had received it.

The Tribunal also heard that in October 2019, Jamshaid handed Ali a further £15,000 in cash, in the presence of his wife, believing it was for legal fees. It later emerged that Jamshaid’s criminal case was funded by legal aid. Ali’S defence stated that this money was given to him by his client for safekeeping.

The tribunal found that Ali provided misleading explanations regarding the purpose of this money and admitted under cross-examination that his earlier statements, which were recorded by Dr Afzal, were untrue. Neither sum was properly recorded in client accounts, in breach of the Solicitors Accounts Rules 2011 and 2019. The Tribunal concluded that Ali provided misleading information to Dr Afzal about the whereabouts and purpose of the funds and ruled that his conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary, decent people.

The judgment stated that Ali had failed to return client money promptly, failed to maintain proper accounting records, and committed numerous breaches of professional obligations. Evidence before the Tribunal included audio recordings and documents showing that Ali gave the misleading impression that he was in contact with third parties to recover the cash returned by the NCA, when in fact he had been holding the money himself. Within days of Dr Afzal submitting her complaint to the SRA, she received a threatening phone call advising her to withdraw the complaint. A recording of this call was provided to the SRA, although Ali denied any involvement.

Senior Counsel in the case confirmed during the disciplinary proceedings that had Jamshaid been properly advised earlier about the true nature of the evidence, he could have entered an earlier guilty plea and may have faced a lesser sentence. The Tribunal heard that Jamshaid denied involvement in bribing cricketers from the date of his arrest in 2017 until December 2019, maintaining what became known as the “cricket bat defence”, claiming he believed conversations with co-conspirators related to a proposed cricket equipment business. Jamshaid told the Tribunal that he had admitted his guilt to Ali from the outset and alleged that Ali encouraged him to pursue a not-guilty plea and fabricate elements of the defence — Ali has denied this. Further evidence was served by the Crown Prosecution Service in October 2019 in the form of WhatsApp messages involving Jamshaid and others, which were indicative of guilt. Describing Ali’s misconduct as very serious, the Tribunal imposed financial sanctions totalling £70,000 and concluded that his actions involved dishonesty, misleading his client, and fundamental failures in handling client money. Monitoring Desk