A solicitor who made thousands of pounds worth of fraudulent legal aid claims has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).

The SDT found that Drakens Mukoro tried to cover his tracks by creating fake attendance notes for mental health hearings that never took place.

The tribunal said Mr Mukoro’s culpability was “of the highest order” and he had caused “colossal damage” to the reputation of the profession.

“He had created false documents and amended documents on files so as to cause them to appear as if they could be properly claimed when he knew that was not the case. … Those actions were clearly planned. It took some foresight to rip references off letters sent to him in his previous employment, and to amend dates on key documents.”

Mr Madoro was found by the tribunal to have “knowingly caused payments to be claimed” from the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) in respect of hearings which had not taken place, and, to have altered and/or added documents to files to “make claims to the LAA appear to have been legitimately claimed when he knew they were not”.

Mr Mukoro was struck off the roll and ordered to pay £38,100 in costs.

(Source – Legal Futures website)