Unregulated immigration advice earns Directors £17,000 fine
Directors to pay back over over £28,000 in compensation
From:
6 January 2021
Directors from two law firms which generated £2.5 million in fees by providing unregulated immigration advice have been fined nearly £17,000 and ordered to pay over £28,000 in compensation.
Dan Romulus Dandes and Babbar Ali Jamil (Directors at DDR Legal Services LLP) and Ms Zia Bi (Director of Burlow & Spencer Ltd) were sentenced yesterday, (Tuesday 5 January 2021) at the Old Bailey where they were given the following sentences:
Mr Dandes received a £20,000 compensation order and fined £750
Mr Jamil, who is currently believed to be out of the country was fined £10,000 in his absence
Hull man avoids jail after giving wrong advice to vulnerable asylum seekers for cash
Gary Pounder was not authorised, trained or qualified to be giving out advice despite setting up a company to help asylum seekers
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Unqualified Hull immigration adviser receives suspended sentence
Found guilty of giving unlawful immigration advice
From:
16 December 2020
A Hull man has received a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to providing unregulated immigration advice.
Gary Pounder, 59, of Orchard Park Estate, Hull, was sentenced three months’ imprisonment (suspended for 12 months) and ordered to repay costs to the victims at Hull & Holderness Magistrates Court on December 10.
In September 2020, Mr Pounder admitted to providing illegal immigration advice or services following an investigation by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) in which three unrelated individuals confirmed Mr Pounder gave them unregulated advice for which he charged fees.
Over about twenty years we can find no evidence that the OISC (Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner) has undertaken any type of
discrimination survey. workpermit.com has recently completed, with the help of an outside survey company, what is probably the only survey of immigration advisers views on discrimination ever. The vast majority of responses we have received for the survey are from the “for profit” sector.
It has been more than three years since the
Dr Eva Michalak Supreme Court Judgement establishing certain rights for professionals to take their regulators to the employment tribunal in discrimination-related matters. We have found in this survey that there is still widespread ignorance amongst immigration advisers, and of course many others, about potential employment law rights following the Michalak judgement. The survey confirms that the vast majority of immigration advisers oppose attempts by the OISC to prevent access to the employment t