A London barrister has finally been banned from practising by the Bar Standards Board, two and a half years after he was sent to prison.

Rohan Pershad QC was sentenced in 2013 following an HMRC investigation which found that he had been charging clients VAT but not passing it on to HMRC. The 12 year fiddle netted Pershad an impressive £624,579. He claimed that he thought his chambers were responsible for paying the VAT out of its cut of his fees, telling the court that he was "extremely poor at paperwork" and "not interested" in money. However colleagues appearing for the prosecution testified that Pershad (a financial fraud specialist, as it happens) was actually "financially astute". He was convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

    Pershad, having just eaten a grape pot inside after telling the Pret guy he was taking it out

A mere two and a half years later, the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal has disbarred Pershad. Sara Jagger, director of professional conduct for the BSB, said that the disbarring order "upholds confidence in the profession". RollOnFriday asked the BSB if this was really true, given the delay. It told RollOnFriday that it had to wait for Pershad's appeal against conviction to be concluded and that there were other circumstances that it would be inappropriate to comment further upon. Mysterious. It also said that as Pershad had not registered to practice during the relevant period, he was no risk to the public.

HMRC confirmed to RollOnFriday that Pershad paid his confiscation order in full last January and has now also repaid it, "bringing the total recovered for the public purse in this case to £619,659.68". Meaning he saved almost £5k. Worth it.
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Comments

Anonymous 02 October 15 17:15

It doesn't do anything for confidence if it takes the BSB three fecking years. Also, what sort of numpty can be good enough to be a QC, but stupid enough to come up with such a pathetic excuse?