Avoids jail
A solicitor has been handed a suspended prison sentence after siphoning off a client’s £132,000 divorce settlement to pay her tax bill.
Analiza Kjaer, 50, was given a two-year sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 100 hours unpaid work after spending the money acquired by fraud by abuse of position on tax bills, and giving some to her daughter.
A judge sitting at the Old Bailey heard how Kjaer, who was struck off last year, had been abused by her husband, and suffered from mental health problems, CourtNewsUK (£) reports.
Having previously set up Able Law in London, and then moving to Italy, Kjaer was arrested for fraud when she returned to the UK in March of last year.
By the time the SRA intervened, half of the money was already gone and had to be recuperated from the regulator’s compensation fund.
In mitigation, Kjaer’s barrister said that she was bankrupt, extremely remorseful, and had sent a letter of apology to the court. She added that Kjaer’s husband was an unemployed gambling addict, who himself had received a suspended sentence in Italy for half strangling Kjaer when she tried to leave him.
Judge Rebecca Trowler KC noted how “the offence was plainly committed by [Kjaer] out of desperation against the background of mistreatment by [her] husband.”