Faked invoices and correspondence
A personal injury solicitor who diverted a portion of his client’s settlement payment into a rehabilitation company connected with his wife, creating false documentation in order to do so, has been struck off.
Fasar Mahmood, a consultant at West Yorkshire firm Tyler Hoffman, told his client that she had been awarded £3,800 in damages following a personal injury claim. When she expressed her disappointment with this figure, Mahmood told her it was a good offer and persuaded her to accept it, according to the tribunal’s ruling. However, the claim had in fact settled for more than twice that amount — £8,500 plus costs of £3,915.
The tribunal heard how Mahmood then falsified documents, including an expert report, invoices and correspondence, to suggest that the client had requested physiotherapy treatment and that she was happy for a portion of her settlement payment to go towards this.
An investigation found that £2,555 of the settlement money due to the client was used to pay a company called “Core Rehab” for physiotherapy and a psychologist’s assessment — services the client maintains she neither requested nor received. These services were not included in the schedule of costs sent to the insurer, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) concluded that all documents relating to the payments to Core Rehab had been falsified.
Investigative officers for the SRA established that Mahmood was financially linked to Core Rehab, his wife being the sole signatory on the company bank account which received the £2,555. The same day, funds were withdrawn from this account to the personal bank account of Mahmood’s wife.
Between 2018 and 2022, Tyler Hoffman had instructed Core Rehab in numerous personal injury matters. Over this four-year period, £266,000 was paid by the firm into four different Core Rehab bank accounts. According to the firm, Mahmood was the only fee earner to use the company.
The SRA uncovered payments totalling £61,745 from Core Rehab bank accounts to Mahmood himself. Mahmood’s personal company, Legalwise Assist Ltd, received £8,500 from bank accounts associated with Core Rehab.
Following a one-day Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) hearing which he did not attend, Mahmood was found to have embarked on a “course of calculated and outright dishonest behaviour”.
The tribunal noted that Mahmood admitted to the allegations and ordered his removal from the roll, along with a costs order of £25,000.