Sheikh Asif Salam v Solicitors Regulation Authority Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Calver |
| Judgment Date | 12 March 2024 |
| Neutral Citation | [2024] EWHC 547 (Admin) |
| Court | King's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: AC-2023-LON-000353 |
[2024] EWHC 547 (Admin)
Mr Justice Calver
Case No: AC-2023-LON-000353
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Ian Skeate (instructed by Public Access) for the Appellant
Benjamin Tankel (instructed by Capsticks Solicitors LLP) for the Respondent
Hearing dates: Tuesday 27 February 2024
This judgment was handed down by the Judge remotely by circulation to the parties' representatives by email and release to The National Archives. The date and time for hand-down is deemed to be 10:00 on Tuesday 12 th March 2024.
Introduction and Background
This is a statutory appeal pursuant to s.49 of the Solicitors Act 1974 brought by Mr Salam (“the Appellant”) against a finding of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (“SDT”) dated 9 February 2023 that he was guilty of dishonest conduct in his dealings with an undercover journalist and that in consequence he should be struck off the Roll of Solicitors.
Prior to him being struck off, Mr Salam was an immigration solicitor, manager and sole practitioner in a law firm in Cheshire, called Salam and Co (“the Firm”).
In 2017 he was approached by an undercover journalist posing as a potential client (“Client A”). The case against him was that he was recorded, both audibly and visually, advising the undercover journalist as to how to obtain fraudulent accountancy evidence in support of an application for a spousal visa. After giving this advice, he telephoned the accountant to introduce the journalist with a view to perpetrating this fraud.
The recordings were broadcast as part of the British Broadcasting Corporation (“BBC”) radio programme and podcast series “File on Four”.
On 23 April 2018, the BBC provided a copy of the recordings to the Solicitors Regulation Authority Limited (“SRA”) pursuant to an order of this Court under s.44BB of the Solicitors Act 1974.
The recordings included:
a. An audio recording of an initial telephone call on 1 December 2016 in which the Appellant allegedly invited the journalist to his office to discuss an option which he said was ‘ not very straight’.
b. An audio recording of a meeting on or around 2 December 2016 at which the Appellant allegedly gave the dishonest advice to the journalist.
c. An audio recording and a video recording of a second meeting on or around 6–7 December 2016 at which the Appellant allegedly repeated the dishonest advice and introduced the journalist to the accountant.
The reason that I say “allegedly” is that, although apparently verbatim transcripts of the three recordings exist, the Appellant maintained before the SDT and maintains on this appeal that the recordings have been tampered with such that they do not accurately record what transpired at those meetings; alternatively that they record the Appellant “conducting research” or “play acting” with Client A and therefore he did not really mean what he is recorded as having said.
Disciplinary proceedings were issued on 21 July 2018, and on 23 July 2020 the SDT certified that there was a case to answer pursuant to Rule 13 of the Solicitors (Disciplinary Proceedings) Rules 2019.
Thereafter, the Appellant made numerous unmeritorious attempts to stall or prevent the disciplinary proceedings from going ahead. The chronology of those attempts is contained in Annex 1 to this judgment. It tells an extraordinarily depressing tale of an abuse of the court's procedures by the Appellant in many different fora, culminating in Kerr J stating at a hearing on 21 October 2022 in the fourth and fifth meritless applications for judicial review brought by the Appellant:
“ This is the latest in a series of attempts by the claimant by applications to this court to obstruct the disciplinary process and prevent the SRA from holding him accountable before the SDT for alleged wrongdoing. If he continues to make unfounded and abusive applications to this court of a similar nature, it is likely that a civil restraint order of some kind will be made against him.” 1
Regrettably, this abusive behaviour persists. On 19 February 2024 the SRA was served with an unsealed copy of a claim form and particulars of claim by the Appellant. The claim does not state a cause of action or remedy but apparently
requests that two high court orders dated 8 June 2021 and 27 May 2022, made in the Appellant's previous judicial review claims of decisions made by the SDT, be overturned on the basis of “fraud”. The claim raises the same points as those raised on this appeal, but utilised in support of a claim to set aside earlier orders on grounds of fraud. Whilst this claim was not before me, it is clear that whichever judge comes to consider that claim will need to be aware of the highly unsatisfactory background to which it is being brought, as contained in this judgment, including Annex 1 hereto. In short, the overall delay created by the Appellant's meritless behaviour exceeded two years and resulted in no fewer than six adjournments of the substantive disciplinary hearing.The Allegations against the Appellant
The allegations against the Appellant which were before the SDT were that;
1. When in practice as a solicitor and sole practitioner at Salam & Co Solicitors Limited (“the Firm”):
1.1 Whilst advising Client A on a possible visa application for her husband, he:
1.1.1 Introduced her to an accountant for the purposes of her obtaining false documentation to support the application, and by reason of such failure breached one or more of Principles 1, 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011; and
1.1.2 Failed to advise Client A that applying for a spousal visa on the basis of false documentation was unlawful, and by reason of such failure breached one or more of Principles 1, 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011.
2. He acted dishonestly in respect of allegation 1.
Hearing before the SDT
At the substantive disciplinary hearing on 31 October 2022, oral evidence was given by Mr Grant, a senior broadcast journalist at the BBC. He explained the process of how he and Client A obtained, stored and used the audio recordings. In particular, he explained how Client A gave him the recording equipment and memory cards shortly after each recording was made. He kept copies of the recordings by then uploading them onto a hard drive and onto his personal work laptop to which only he had access, being password protected. The original recording equipment was then returned to the third-party supplier of it, and the memory cards were wiped at the end of the investigation. The metadata for the files that were retained does not show the dates when the recordings were made.
Mr. Grant explained how Client A had handed the recordings to him as soon as she came out of the meeting on or around 7 December 2016 (referred to in paragraph 6(c) above). Mr. Grant explained that he was responsible for using the recordings in the BBC programme. He confirmed that the full recordings which he subsequently provided to BBC's Litigation Department were not altered or edited by him in any way nor did he believe that anyone else had edited or altered them.
The SDT also received oral evidence from Mike Shields, a forensic investigation manager of the SRA (he was not the forensic investigation officer who had carried out the investigation as that person had regrettably died before the hearing). Mr Shields was in possession of the investigation files which the SRA had previously believed to have been misplaced. The files were obtained and upon review the SRA confirmed that there were no relevant materials on them to disclose. It nevertheless provided voluntary disclosure of a number of documents. The Appellant confirmed, however, that none of these were relevant.
The Appellant chose not to give any oral evidence to the SDT and accordingly was not cross-examined.
The full procedural chronology is set out in Annex 1 to this judgment. At this juncture, it is only necessary to mention that on day 2 of the substantive hearing on 1st November 2022, the Appellant claimed that he suddenly had been taken ill and that he required emergency treatment. This necessitated the adjournment of the substantive hearing which was part-heard, and it was re-listed for 8–9 February 2023.
Shortly prior to the resumed hearing, on 27 January 2023 and 1 February 2023 the Appellant made further applications for an adjournment of the hearing which were dismissed by the SDT.
Further still, on 5 February 2023 the Appellant applied for the chairman of the SDT to recuse himself on the grounds of apparent bias.
The hearing resumed in-person on 8 February 2023. The Appellant decided to attend remotely from his home in Chester (the SDT sits in Central London). His recusal application was rejected by the SDT. After it was rejected, the Appellant said that he had intended to attend only the recusal application remotely; insisted that Mr Shields should give the remainder of his evidence in person; and insisted that the hearing should adjourn whilst the Appellant travelled to the hearing to attend in person. This was despite the fact that the Appellant had previously expressly agreed that Mr. Shields should be able to conclude his evidence remotely (as recorded in the SDT's ruling on 4 November 2022, paragraph 17). The SDT, unsurprisingly, rejected this request and decided to proceed. The Appellant then stated that, because Mr Shields was not present in-person, he would refuse to ask him any further questions and so Mr Shields was released. This was again wholly unreasonable behaviour, with the Appellant once again playing “fast and loose” with the SDT.
The Appellant then made a submission of no case to answer, which was dismissed.
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