Law career hopes of solicitor-to-be dashed
A former trainee solicitor has failed to overturn a Chris Huhne-style conviction for involvement in speed camera fraud.
Asha Khan — who was a trainee at her family run Kahn’s Law Firm Limited in Newcastle — was given a suspended jail sentence last February for attempting to cover up the fact that her un-licensed father was driving her car.
Echoing the case involving the former Liberal Democrat cabinet minister — who was along with his wife was slapped with an eight-month sentence for shifting speeding points — Khan will now struggle to get back on the legal profession career ladder.
The Newcastle Chronicle reported that the Court of Appeal yesterday threw out her bid to overturn her conviction for perverting the course of justice.
What’s more, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) confirmed to Legal Cheek that it had ordered that no law firm should employ Khan in the future without express permission from the regulator.
According to the Chronicle report, Khan’s 70-year-old father — who did hot have a full driving licence — had been photographed speeding down Newcastle’s Jesmond Road in his daughter’s BMW in August 2010.
The trial jury heard that the trainee solicitor had originally told investigators that the driver was a part-time employee at shop also owned by the family. Jurors heard that the employee was bribed into participating in the scam.
Once the deception was exposed, Khan’s defence team argued that because she came from a strict Muslim family the trainee solicitor would not have questioned male family members over who was driving the car.
The case report went on to say that defence lawyers argued that despite being a trainee lawyer, Khan was a “woman of limited intelligence” who would have been easily taken in.
A spokesman for the SRA told Legal Cheek that trainees have the same obligation as solicitors to declare matters that might have implications for their suitability to practise. He added:
“We would then take that into consideration before admitting them as fully-qualified solicitors”.