A former IT worker with City firm Ashurst has admitted taking two laptops and selling them after initially denying any wrongdoing.
Irfan Malik, employed as an IT service desk analyst, also admitted giving false and misleading statements to his firm during the investigation.
In a decision notice, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said Malik had removed two laptops last October from the firm’s IT storeroom without Ashurst’s knowledge or consent.
He was called into an investigation meeting six months later after it was found the items were missing, and found that one of them had been logged onto the same Wi-Fi connection that Malik used for his own computer. Malik denied any knowledge about the missing laptops and could not explain why they had been traced to the address of a business local to him.
During a second meeting more than a week later, Malik said the laptops were now at his house after he had paid the business owner £500 to get them back. He claimed they had been sold to the business owner by an unidentified third party through online site Gumtree.
The next day he admitted taking the laptops and to logging onto at least one of them from his home Wi-Fi.
The SRA said Malik had acted dishonestly and should no longer be involved in a legal practice. He was made subject to a section 43 order, preventing him from working in the profession again without permission. Malik also agreed to pay £300 costs.
