Rookie criminal lawyer sent to slammer for over three years
A junior criminal barrister has been jailed for conspiracy to supply a Class A substance, with the sentencing judge lamenting the loss of the rookie’s legal career as he caged him for over three years.
Omar Khan (pictured above) — who was called to the bar in 2009 before going on to qualify as a solicitor in 2012 — was sent down for 40 months on Friday at Nottingham Crown Court for his involvement in the drugs plan, which saw police apparently recover 1kg of cocaine.
Charged and remanded in custody in December 2015, Khan spent Christmas at Her Majesty’s pleasure awaiting trial. At the time of the arrest he was a solicitor at the Midlands office of criminal law outfit The Johnson Partnership.
Appearing at Nottingham Crown Court via video-link last month, Khan pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to supply a Class A substance.
Speaking to Legal Cheek at the time of of Khan’s arrest, Digby Johnson, a partner at The Johnson Partnership, said:
This was not the goodbye present we were hoping for. I am devastated for both Omar and the firm. One minute I thought he was going to Huddersfield, the next the police showed up at the office to search his table. I suppose you’ll now find him in F Wing at Nottingham Prison.
In the aftermath of Khan’s sentencing, Johnson fired this warning to lawyers in an interview with the Nottingham Post:
It is a very salutary reminder for anyone involved in the law that a fall from grace can be a very catastrophic thing to happen. He was someone you thought you knew reasonably well. But you had someone there who has something going on that you did not know about — something that was so devastating.
Judge Michael Stokes QC had a similar take, telling Khan, whose legal career is now surely over, that his case was “a tragedy”.