Three acquitted in mortgage fraud trial
Wednesday 15 June 2011
The jury in the trial of an alleged £49 million mortgage fraud has acquitted three defendants – Hardeep Sodhi of Patwa Solicitors in Birmingham, Simon Lawrence of Darlingtons Solicitors in North London and Mark Knights of Mace & Jones in Manchester. However, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in respect of all counts against Fatema Patwa, principal of Patwa Solicitors in Birmingham, Laurence Ferrigan, former partner of the CFB Partnership in London and Kamran Malik of A&H Solicitors in Birmingham. The Serious Fraud Office will now need to decide whether the three will have to face a retrial. A decision is expected sometime later in June 2011.
We currently represent a number of solicitors and other professionals including bank staff, bank managers, Land Registry staff and similar officials who have been charged in relation to mortgage frauds. We find that very often these frauds are being committed by very specialised gangs of professional fraudsters and that they target unsuspecting professionals to assist them in their frauds. This is a very specialised area of the law and offences in this class against professionals are being brought in relation to relatively new legislation. The facts and circumstances of cases of this nature can be very complicated and require hours of dedicated and detailed assessment by specialist criminal defence solicitors. If you have any concerns about your own circumstances or are a professional facing charges related to mortgage fraud, we would like to hear from you, in strictest confidence. You can contact one of our specialist criminal defence lawyers on 020 8401 7352 during office hours and rest assured that any information you pass to us will be confidential at all times.
