Court heard how any future career in law had “all but gone”
A BPP Law School student who was caught with £45,000 worth of high-strength cocaine has been spared jail after she told the court she was just given it to “look after”.
Nishat Shaki (pictured above), a second-year LLB-er from Spitalfields east London, was caught with two golf ball-sized wraps of the white stuff back in the summer of 2014.
A police patrol in the Isle of Dogs area of London spotted an unnamed friend of Shaki placing a bag in some bushes. While questioning the teen, Shaki approached police, and informed them that she had been given the bag to look after. The Crown did not dispute this fact.
Astonishingly, police later discovered the cocaine was between 55% and 75% in purity and had a street value of almost £45,000.
The aspiring barrister — who according to her LinkedIn profile spent three months as a junior clerk at London’s Temple Court Chambers last year — was due to stand trial at the Old Bailey in April, but plead guilty to possession of Class A drug with intent on the first day.
According to the Mail Online, the 20-year-old’s barrister Will Noble told the court that Shaki’s aspirations of becoming a lawyer had “all but gone”. Continuing, he said:
She approached the police and told the truth, implicating herself and thereby exonerating her friend in circumstances when there was no other evidence. It was a courageous and decent thing to have done in circumstances where her future aspirations to become a lawyer would be severely damaged.
Shaki — who also took part in a legal practice programme at City outfit CMS Cameron McKenna — was slapped with a 21-month suspended sentence and 120 hour community order.
Judge Timothy Pontius told the young law student:
I find it very difficult to understand the level of stupidity that led you to behave in this way when you knew perfectly well you were taking possession of something illegal.
Before adding:
You are coming to the end of your second year of a law degree course but I would be surprised if there wasn’t some adverse effect.