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A partner from a Bradford solicitors’ firm has been jailed along with his brother after unlawfully taking money from clients by setting up a fictitious agency.
Mohammed Ayub, 55, and Mohammed Riaz, 49, along with fellow Chambers Solicitors employee Neil Frew, 49, created a fake company called Legal Support Services (LSS).
Sheffield Crown Court heard during a trial in November last year, how the accused used the company to claim expenses from the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), a government body that administers the legal aid system.
The prosecution claimed that the three men claimed disbursement payments for the provision of interpreters to Chambers Solicitors for Immigration and Asylum contract work.
During a sentencing hearing at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday, 9 June, the prosecutor estimated that between September 2010 and October 2014 the trio fraudulently gained from £194,000 to £234,000.
Ayub was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, with Riaz jailed for two years and nine months.
Frew was jailed for two years, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.