Lawyer claimed to work 28 hours a day so she could claim £70,000 bonus

A lawyer who claimed she worked 28 hours a day to bag herself a £70,000 bonus has been struck off.

Samina Ahmed regularly fiddled her timesheets to inflate the hours she worked, with 133 days exceeding 24 hours.

She did it to qualify for the 400% bonus scheme at firm Tuckers, where she had worked for 17 years by the time the scam was rumbled in 2024.

Now Ahmed has been struck off and ordered to pay £5,000 by the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal, which said she had ‘acted dishonestly and without integrity’.

The tribunal heard that between July 2021 and June 2022, she logged 7,511.70 hours over 266 days.

That averages out at 28.24 hours per day and included 133 days for which she recorded more than 24 hours.

She was warned against her fraudulent scheme at a staff meeting but continued to fiddle with her time sheets, it was said.

As the lawyer worked with people in prisons, her work was paid for by the Legal Aid Agency, which is publicly funded.

The panel heard she was ‘motivated by the firm’s bonus scheme which rewarded high billing’.

Their judgement read: ‘Ms Ahmed aimed to reach the highest bonus tier (400% of salary), potentially earning £69,300.

‘No bonus was paid, however, as the firm discovered the misconduct in time.’

The hours she supposedly worked were paid for by the Legal Aid Agency, totalling at £98,093 which had to be paid back by Tuckers Solicitors.

After she was found out to not have stopped after the meeting, Ms Ahmed was let go and hauled in front of a Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal.

There she was struck off the solicitors’ Roll and ordered to pay £5,000 which was reduced from £49,600 because she has since worked in retail jobs and for Wigan Council.

The Tribunal said: ‘[We] found that Ms Ahmed acted dishonestly and without integrity in recording time against matters where she had not and could not have completed the work claimed.

‘In so doing she had failed to uphold public trust and confidence in the profession.

‘The Tribunal found that the seriousness of Ms Ahmed’s dishonest conduct was at the highest level and the resulting, foreseeable harm, both to others and to the reputation of the profession, was such that the sanction of striking off the Roll was fair, reasonable and proportionate.

‘Ms Ahmed acknowledged that she was currently employed as an apprentice with Wigan Council and that her income was higher than when she had previously been employed in the retail sector.

‘She submitted, however, that her income barely covered her outgoings and that she remained in receipt of universal credit and child benefit. She was a single parent to three children.

‘The Tribunal took into account Ms Ahmed’s modest financial means and had regard to the case of Barnes.

‘The Tribunal did not consider that Ms Ahmed was entirely unable to meet a costs order in a reasonable period; however, it considered it appropriate to reduce the total amount of costs to reflect a fair contribution, taking into account Ms Ahmed’s limited means.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Comments Add as preferred source