A SENIOR partner at a Bradford firm of solicitors and his brother formed a fictitious agency to claim almost £600,000 in interpreter’s legal fees, a jury has heard.

Mohammed Ayub, 55, his brother Mohammed Riaz, 48, and Chambers Solicitors employee Neil Frew, 48, are on trial at Sheffield Crown Court on a charge of conspiracy to defraud.

It is alleged that between September 2010 and October 2014 they conspired together to create a “sham company” – known as Legal Support Services (LSS) – to claim the money in expenses from the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), a government body that administers the legal aid system.

It is said they were involved in the claiming of disbursement payments for an agency for the provision of interpreters to Chambers Solicitors for Immigration and Asylum contract work, when in reality, no such agency existed or was used.

All three defendants deny the charge.

Prosecutor Simon Kealey told the court that Ayub, of Aireville Drive, Shipley, was principal solicitor, and Frew, of Hoyle Court Drive, Baildon, immigration manager and a partner at the firm, which received a contract from the LAA for immigration work in October 2010.

Disbursements, such as payment for interpreters, were not included in the fixed fees in the contract, and claimed as out-of-pocket expenses.

Mr Kealey said that almost £600,000 had been paid into LSS accounts over a four-year period, but the company had no records of ever paying any corporation tax, VAT, or utility bills.

He said the postal address for LSS was listed as Fulton Street, situated at the back of Chambers premises in Grattan Road in Bradford city centre.

In October 2011, Bella-Marie Jackson, a contract manager for the LAA, was said to have met Ayub in Bradford as part of an auditing process.

Mr Kealey said she noticed an invoice from LSS with the same address as the Chambers office, and no company registration details or VAT number.

After she reported her concerns, a review by the LAA’s counter-fraud team got under way.

From a random selection of files, 27 of the 46 cases contained claims for interpreters’ fees, but there were no details of how the interpreters were contacted or appointments made.

When Nina Willis, of the LAA counter fraud team, tried ringing Riaz, of Southfield Square, Manningham, said to be the owner of LSS, for details of the interpreters used, he failed to respond via phone, post, or e-mail.

Mr Kealey said some of the interpreters were then traced and spoken to by police in 2014.

He said none had ever heard of LSS, and said their work was arranged and paid for by Chambers directly.

Mr Kealey said: “It became clear that LSS invoices submitted to the LAA had been significantly inflated.”

He said that an invoice for one interpreter for £16.20 in February 2011 had been submitted by LSS for £99.

The interpreter said he had never heard of LSS or worked for them, and did not know Riaz.

Mr Kealey said that immigration case workers employed by Chambers also said they had never heard of LSS, saying that they booked interpreters directly at a standard rate of £20 per hour, with one stating she had been told by Frew that invoices should be sent to Ayub for payment.

He said that a receptionist who worked for Chambers in Bradford from 2010 to 2012 said she had been aware of LSS as Ayub had a paying-in book for the company.

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She said she had sometimes paid cheques into the LSS accounts but had “no idea what they were for”.

Mr Kealey said that an investigation into Riaz’s role with LSS found he had a record with HMRC as being employed by a company called Five Leisure Amusements between 2008 and 2015.

In August 2014, a new record was created stating he was self-employed and trading as LSS, but this was said to have been done after the beginning of the police investigation.

Mr Kealey said it was only as the investigation continued that officers became aware that Ayub and Riaz were brothers.

He said that between June 2010 and May 2014, £592,000 was paid into LSS accounts, including £320,000 from Chambers and £269,000 from unknown sources.

In terms of outgoings over the four-year period, he said £135,000 had been paid to Five Leisure Amusements in April 2011, more than £30,000 paid for fees at Bradford Grammar School for the son of a Chambers employee, and about £537,000 in cash withdrawn in seven transactions between January and April 2014, again following the start of the police investigation into LSS.

On the withdrawals, Mr Kealey said: “No explanation has been provided by Mohammed Riaz, the only inference that can be drawn is that it was to dispose of the proceeds of dishonesty.”

Describing the LSS agency, he said it was a “sham company existing in name only” to claim the LAA fees, which were “either grossly inflated or never incurred at all.”

He described Riaz as “simply a front” for LSS, and said the agency was created purely as a “vehicle for fraud”.

In July 2014, police, including officers from West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit and Bradford CID, executed a warrant at the Chambers offices on Grattan Road.

Mr Kealey told the jury that many of the files seized had shown a “very significant” increase in the amounts claimed by LSS compared to the actual amounts charged by the interpreters, with some LSS invoices found to have Frew’s fingerprints on.

The three defendants were interviewed on a number of occasions and all denied any wrongdoing.

On his arrest, Riaz was said to have given a prepared statement confirming he had provided interpreting services to Chambers via LSS.

Mr Kealey said that Riaz told officers that it was “immaterial” that Chambers workers may have been unaware they were acting as “agents” for LSS, claiming that while the process may have been “novel”, it was not fraudulent.

The trial continues.