SDT probes 24 withdrawals, missing bills and a ‘fabricated’ invoice in £216k client-cash scandal
A solicitor faces a blistering disciplinary case over a year of financial chaos, with allegations of 24 improper withdrawals totalling £216,387.30 from client account and a ‘fabricated’ bill created months after the date printed on it. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) convened across three hearing windows — March 2017, https://solicitornews.co.uk/tag/client-accounts/May 2019 and July 2019 — to test the case brought by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) against Preston practitioner Hanif Mohammed.
The tribunal panel — chaired by Mr R. Nicholas with Mr G. Sydenham and Dr S. Bown — heard that between January and December 2014 Mr Mohammed “made 24 improper withdrawals and/or allowed improper withdrawals” from client account, creating shortages in breach of the Solicitors Accounts Rules 2011 (SAR) and SRA Principles 2011. The alleged breaches include withdrawing money not properly required, allowing client account to become overdrawn, failing to act with integrity, failing to maintain public trust, and failing to protect client money and assets.
Eight of the 24 transfers — made between April and May 2014 — allegedly moved £72,787.16 from client to office account for costs when no bill or written costs notification had been sent. Those particulars also cite lack of integrity. The SRA further alleges Mr Mohammed failed to remedy the breaches promptly and failed to keep accounting records properly written up, with missing entries and absent five-weekly reconciliations throughout 2014.
Most explosively, the SRA alleges Mr Mohammed “fabricated a bill of costs” purportedly dated 9 May 2014, when the document was in fact created in November 2014 — an accusation pleaded under Principles 2 and 6 (integrity and public trust). Dishonesty is alleged in relation to this ‘fabricated’ bill and six of the eight no-bill transfers, though dishonesty is not an essential ingredient to prove those allegations.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe courtroom cast has been heavyweight. For the SRA, Ms Chloe Carpenter of Fountain Court appeared; at the March 2017 hearing Mr Mohammed was represented by Adrian Keeling QC and Richard Alomo, before later appearing in person at the resumed hearings in 2019. The SDT record lists extensive bundles, correspondence and procedural chronologies, reflecting a case fought line-by-line over ledgers, lists and reconciliation mechanics.
A pivotal early turn came when the SRA withdrew the dishonesty element for two of the eight cost transfers after late-disclosed material (including an attendance note and banking slips) was produced. The tribunal granted that narrow withdrawal, but the remainder of the dishonesty case stayed live. That moment distilled the entire dispute: what did the ledgers, lists and contemporaneous documents truly show when the transfers were authorised?
From there, the proceedings became a grind of process and proof. The SDT dealt with adjournment applications, the respondent’s health issues, and a day when he sought time to retrieve archived “central bills records”. The tribunal stressed it expected clarity on which allegations were admitted and which were denied, and warned it could draw adverse inferences if a respondent declined to give evidence while disputing material facts. Eventually, it pressed on, requiring any new documents to be served and scrutinised before cross-examination.
Beyond the courtroom drama, the stakes are simple and stark. Client money sits at the heart of public trust in legal services. The SRA’s case portrays 2014 as a year when that trust was shredded by unrecorded payments, back-filled paperwork and a reconciliation regime that collapsed. The defence position has included reliance on fee-earner lists and later-collated materials said to show billing or duplication, pushing back against any suggestion of deliberate wrongdoing. The tribunal’s meticulous step-through — of receipts, lists with manuscript ticks, ledger balances and reconciliation gaps — shows how forensic these cases become when the numbers refuse to square.
As the hearing phases closed in July 2019, the record laid bare an SDT determined to cut through delay and decide what really happened in Mr Mohammed’s accounts. Whatever the final reckoning on each head of charge, the portrait painted inside the tribunal room is already bruising: client funds moving when they should not have, missing bills where there should have been notice, and a controversial bill carrying a date the SRA says it did not earn.