Lawyer is struck off after claiming she worked 28 hours a DAY in order to get £70,000 bonus

A lawyer who claimed he worked 28 hours a day to collect a bonus of nearly £70,000 has been sacked.

Samina Ahmed, a 46-year-old single mother of three children, noted that she routinely worked more hours than usual, even saying she worked more than 24 hours a day for 133 days, the court heard.

Ms Ahmed worked as a prison law solicitor at Tuckers Solicitors for 17 years, and because she worked with people in prisons, her work was paid for by the publicly funded Legal Aid Agency.

Even though he was warned of the fraud scheme at a staff meeting, he still continued to tamper with timesheets.

He has now been dismissed and ordered to pay £5,000 in costs, with the Solicitor Disciplinary Tribunal saying timescales were ‘impossible’.

While working in the company’s Manchester office between July 2021 and June 2022, Ms Ahmed recorded time in the company’s case management system that did not reflect the work she completed.

During this time, he logged 7,511.70 hours over 266 days; This means an average of more than 28 hours a day.

This also included 133 days where he recorded more than 24 hours a day.

A meeting was held in April 2022 after the company realized the imprudence, but Ms Ahmed, who was training new lawyers at the firm, still continued to forge timesheets.

He did this to receive the maximum bonus, which could be up to 400 per cent of his normal salary at Tuckers Solicitors.

This would have earned Ms Ahmed £69,300 personally if her scheme had not been discovered in time.

The hours he allegedly worked were paid for by the Legal Aid Agency; this amounted to £98,093, which had to be repaid by Tuckers Solicitors.

After she was found to have continued to forge working hours, Ms Ahmed was released and appeared before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

There he was removed from the solicitors’ rolls and ordered to pay £5,000; This has since been reduced from £49,600 as he works in retail and for Wigan Council.

The court said: ‘[We] It found that Ms Ahmed had acted dishonestly and dishonestly in recording the time against which she had not and could not complete the alleged work.

‘By doing this he has failed to maintain the public’s trust and faith in the profession.

‘The tribunal found that, given the seriousness of Ms Ahmed’s dishonest conduct and the foreseeable harm caused both to others and to the reputation of the profession as a result, the sanction of delisting was fair, reasonable and proportionate.

‘Ms Ahmed accepted that she was currently working as an apprentice with Wigan Council and that her income was higher than when she had previously worked in retail.

‘But he stated that his income barely covered his expenses and he continued to receive universal credit and child benefit. He was the only parent of three children.

‘The court took into account Ms Ahmed’s modest financial means and took into account Barnes’ situation.

‘The court was not of the opinion that Ms Ahmed would be unable to comply with the costs order within a reasonable time; However, taking into account Ms Ahmed’s limited means, it was considered appropriate to reduce the total cost to reflect a fair contribution.’