A former solicitor caught in a media sting advising how to make a visa application has said he will appeal the tribunal’s decision to strike him off the roll.
Asif Salam was struck off the roll last month after the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that he introduced the client to an accountant for the purposes of her obtaining false documents to support the application. He was also found to have acted dishonestly in respect of this allegation.
Salam claimed to be conducting research and play-acting during interactions with an undercover reporter, and submitted he was the victim of a conspiracy. He has already indicated his intention to appeal the tribunal’s decision in the High Court, although the strike-off remains in force pending the outcome of those proceedings.
The tribunal had heard that immigration solicitor Salam, the manager of Cheshire firm Salam & Co Solicitors, had first spoken to the reporter posing as a potential client in December 2016. Their conversation, which took place in Urdu and was translated for the tribunal transcript, was covertly recorded.
Salam stated that the client should make an in-person appointment, saying to her: ‘There is a way which is not very straight that I can’t discuss over the phone.’
During their meeting, to discuss getting a visa for the client’s husband to come from Pakistan to the UK, he suggested going to an accountant and arranging a purported second job to boost her reported income and create payslips.
In a second meeting, Salam reiterated that the client did not meet the minimum financial threshold required for spousal visa applications. They discussed the client paying £900 for immigration advice and then Salam said there was a ‘dodgy way’ of applying for the visa, by asking for an accountant to create her as an employee for six months.
Salam offered to send the client to someone but said he would not be directly involved as it’s ‘something ethically I should not get involved’ [sic].
In January 2017, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary entitled ‘Breaking into Britain’ which included recordings of the discussions between the reporter and Salam.
Salam submitted to the tribunal he had no case to answer on the basis that the SRA’s quality of evidence was ‘of poor quality and incomplete’. He said the recordings relied upon were not forensically tested and alleged that the SRA was ‘sitting on evidence’, ‘telling lies’ and ‘did everything to make forensic testing impossible’.
The tribunal refused the submission and Salam then elected not to give evidence. In a witness statement, he had contended he was victim of a BBC conspiracy and said at all times that he was ‘play-acting’.
The tribunal ruled that that audio and video recordings were ‘reliable and accurate’ and said that Salam’s assertions the evidence was tampered with were ‘completely without foundation’.
The judgment added: ‘Taken as a whole and in the context in which the exchanges took place, the tribunal readily concluded that Mr Salam knew exactly what he was doing. Put bluntly, that he was facilitating a means for Client A to make a fraudulent spousal visa application.’
Salam asked in mitigation for the tribunal to adopt a ‘sympathetic view’, but it ruled that the only sanction which met the overarching public sanction was a striking off order. He was also ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £68,374.
