Jarman: Solicitor can retire without finding of dishonesty
The High Court has taken the almost unprecedented step of withdrawing a notice of intervention into a law firm issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
His Honour Judge Jarman KC, sitting as a High Court judge, held that the small risk of the public on the part of veteran solicitor Martyn Howard Santer was outweighed by damage caused to him and his clients by continuing the intervention.
The only other time the High Court has taken this action, nearly 20 years ago, it was reversed by the Court of Appeal.
Mr Santer, who qualified in 1982, was a sole practitioner in Barking, East London for nearly 40 years, specialising in conveyancing. He set up Santer Solicitors in August 2022 to take over the practice so that he could sell and retire due to ill health.
The following month, he agreed to sell it to Asad Sahi, a registered foreign lawyer, for £90,000. In November 2022, the firm engaged him on a consultancy basis.
However, Asad Sahi was in fact Yawar Ali Shah, a disbarred barrister who had been jailed in 2013 for conspiracy to defraud when he impersonated a genuine firm of solicitors and misappropriated almost £3m.
The SRA intervened in July 2024 on the basis that the SRA had reason to suspect dishonesty on the part of Mr Santer as a solicitor and separately as manager of the firm, and also on the part of the person known as Asad Sahi.
HHJ Jarman said: “It is not in dispute that Asad Sahi carried out a good deal of genuine work for the claimants. However, it is now clear that there is good reason to suspect that he and his associate, Pooja Hazari, acted dishonestly in conducting work on some of the conveyancing files.”
This included falsifying title documents and making false mortgage applications.
In challenging the intervention, Mr Santer argued that, rather than being complicit in this dishonest conduct, he was as much taken in as anyone else.
“He signed a contract of sale with Asad Sahi and began to receive payments on account from him,” the judge explained.
“As the SRA was aware, it was known by this time that fraudsters were looking to buy established practices as a vehicle for fraud. Mr Santer’s case is that he failed to spot the fraudulent conduct before it was too late.”
During an earlier investigation of Santer Solicitors in 2023, which was closed with no further action, the SRA warned the solicitor of this fraud risk.
The 2024 investigation, which followed complaints of a possible property fraud, referred to correspondence from a firm called Watlingtons, for which Asad Sahi had previously worked, alleging that he had left with files and owing substantial sums of money for unauthorised expenditure.
It also referred to the arrest of Asad Sahi and later Pooja Hazari in June 2024 for conspiracy to steal.
The report concluded that either Mr Santer was complicit or incompetent and recommended intervention.
The SRA adjudicator found reasons to suspect dishonesty on the part of Asad Sahi and Mr Santer. Mr Santer had also employed “other individuals of concern”, including Robert Jones (also known as Robert Offord/Robert John), who was subject to a control order under section 43 of the Solicitors Act 1974, preventing him from working in a law firm without the SRA’s permission.
The SRA’s forensic investigation officer (FIO) had told Mr Santer about Mr Jones’s true identity, and the order, in March 2024 but did nothing about it, such as apply for permission to employ him.
Further, shortly after the SRA started its investigation, a number of files were found having been illegally fly-tipped. The adjudicator said this was “presumably to avoid them being discovered or examined by the SRA”.
She ordered the intervention, noting that she did not have to find that Mr Santer had been dishonest, only that there were grounds to suspect it.
Mr Santer said he became aware that Robert Jones was assisting Asad Sahi and being held out as a caseworker in late 2023. The SRA admitted that a search of its website for Robert Jones would not have revealed the section 43 order, because its records had not been updated after a name change.
Mr Santer said he did not apply for permission for Mr Jones to work after March 2024, because he instead decided to prohibit any future involvement with the practice.
As for the fly tipping, the London Borough of Newham told the police that it was conducted by two individuals, one of which was identified as an associate of Yawar Ali Shah. Mr Santer used a confidential waste disposal service.
HHJ Jarman rejected criticisms of the adjudicator’s decision. It was “not a fact-finding exercise but a swift exercise to decide whether suspicions were such as to justify urgent intervention to protect the public”. There were “clear and cogent reasons for the adjudicator to find suspicion”.
However, “the reasons to suspect dishonesty on the part of Mr Santer, have been, if not dispelled, significantly lessened. In particular, there is no reason to suspect that Mr Santer was complicit in the dishonest conduct of Asad Sahi”.
He carried out “appropriate identity checks” and it was “unlikely that a professional with an unblemished record of over 40 years, as Mr Santer was, would risk all by becoming complicit with a sophisticated fraudster in the closing months of the practice”.
Other solicitors had previously been deceived by Yawar Ali Shah, he added.
“I also accept that the intervention has already done sizeable damage to the practice and to Mr Santer’s reputation, causing great stress.”
Though it was likely that many clients have left, withdrawing the intervention notice was “likely to have real mitigation impacts” – it was “not unrealistic” to expect that some longstanding clients would remain or return.
Even though Yawar Ali Shah and his associates were no longer working in the practice, this did not mean there was no risk, however: “It is clear that there have been failings on [Mr Santer’s] part of supervision and of ensuring compliance, and a lack of insight into his failings.
While the SRA could simply issue another intervention notice, “there is no evidence before me of an intention to do so or what terms any such notice might contain. This is not a reason not to withdraw a notice issued on the basis of reasonable suspicion of dishonesty”.
HHJ Jarman concluded: “In my judgment, although there is likely to be some risk to the public by withdrawal, such risk is likely to be relatively small now that Mr Santer has had the experience of investigation and intervention and now that Yawar Ali Shah and his associates no longer work in the practice.
“Mr Santer is unlikely to put himself in this position again. The damage to him and the practice and potentially to clients by the notice continuing, although already suffered to a sizeable extent, is such as to outweigh that risk.
“It would provide him with an opportunity to sell what remains of his practice and to retire without the mantle of reasons to suspect dishonesty. It is not necessary or proportionate to continue with the intervention notice in my judgment, and accordingly I shall order that the notice is withdrawn.”
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