The former human rights lawyer Phil Shiner has pleaded guilty to fraud charges linked to claims made against Iraq war veterans.
Shiner, 67, appeared at Southwark crown court on Monday and pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA). He will be sentenced on 2 December.
Shiner, from Birmingham, was the principal solicitor of the law firm Public Interest Lawyers. He made an application to the Legal Services Commission in 2007 in which he sought up to £200,000 of legal aid funding for his firm to represent clients including Khuder Al-Sweady, in an application for judicial review.
According to the NCA, Shiner received about £3m in the value of the contract, and the ensuing Al-Sweady inquiry cost the UK taxpayer £24m.
In making his application, Shiner failed to disclose that an agent acting on his behalf and with his knowledge had been cold-calling and making unsolicited approaches to potential clients in Iraq. He also failed to disclose that he was paying referral fees.
This practice was not permitted as part of gaining a legal aid contract, the NCA said.
He was also convicted for providing a witness statement to the commission in support of his application, which was again gained via an unsolicited approach.
As a result of his failure to disclose this information, Shiner was able to gain a “valuable legal aid contract to enable him to pursue the judicial review”, the NCA said.
Andy Kelly, the head of the NCA’s international corruption unit, said: “This conviction is a milestone in what has been a thorough and complex domestic and international investigation. Shiner’s actions resulted in untold pressure and anxiety on members of the British armed forces, pursuing legal challenges funded through dishonest actions.”
The Al-Sweady inquiry was named after a 19-year-old Iraqi killed by British troops on 14 May 2004 during the battle of Danny Boy, a checkpoint on the main Amara-Basra road in south-east Iraq.
The inquiry was opened after senior judges condemned the Ministry of Defence’s “lamentable” failure to disclose information about the battle, in particular about the handling of dead and captured Iraqi insurgents.
Public hearings began in 2013 when lawyers began questioning Iraqi and British army witnesses.
The inquiry heard from young, inexperienced British soldiers, unprepared for violent clashes including close-quarter fighting with insurgents.
British lawyers for the Iraqis conceded a year into the hearings there was “insufficient evidence” to establish that Iraqis were unlawfully killed in the British camp. However, they did not withdraw the allegations of ill-treatment of Iraqis.
Lawyers for the MoD described the Iraqi allegations as “the product of lies”, and evidence that was deliberately fabricated. Those making them were guilty of a criminal conspiracy, the MoD said.
In 2014, the inquiry rejected allegations that British soldiers murdered insurgents and mutilated their bodies, although did find that a number of prisoners were abused and that troops breached the Geneva conventions.
