Immigration barrister loses appeal against disbarment

The Bar Standards Board has dismissed a barrister’s appeal against disbarment, stating that “findings of professional misconduct, including dishonesty, and the sanction of disbarment imposed by the Tribunal were appropriate and correctly applied”. The case is Dean v The Bar Standards Board (BSB) [2025] EWHC 1860 (Admin).

Background

The Bar Disciplinary Tribunal ordered disbarment of the appellant following a hearing that took place from 4 to 6 June 2024, after finding all charges of professional misconduct, including dishonesty, proven. There were two sets of charges, the first contained six charges relating to the handling of a client’s immigration matter and the allegations included:

i) Delegating a client’s case to an unregistered caseworker without proper supervision, leading to a poor outcome.

ii) Failing to properly inform his client about the nature and scope of legal services, thereby misleading or permitting the client to be misled.

iii) Failing to provide his client with acceptance of instructions, confirmation of terms of acting, and information on their right to complain.

The second set of charges related to the appellant’s supervision of immigration advisers. There were seven charges here, including:

i) Continuing to supervise immigration advisers at Ebrahim & Co after the cancellation of the firm’s registration by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (“OISC”) in August 2017 and/or from 3 February 2020. This was alleged to be a breach of Core Duty 3 (honesty and integrity) and Core Duty 2 (best interests of clients) and/or Core Duty 5 (diminishing public trust and confidence), and rule C85A of the BSB Handbook.

ii) Falsely confirming to the BSB by email on 27 January 2020 and to OISC on 21 June 2020 that he had ceased supervising immigration advisers at Ebrahim & Co after the cancellation of their registration, when he had not. This was alleged to be a breach of Core Duty 3, Core Duty 5, and/or Core Duty 9 (failing to be open and co-operative with his regulator).

The appellant gave evidence to the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal to the effect that he had known the firm and “Mr E and Ms B” since the early 1990s and that he considered them to be very experienced in immigration. When they started having “difficulties” with OISC he agreed to supervise them. The appellant accepted that he had been notified of the rule change around supervision in February 2020 and said that he did not provide supervision after giving an assurance to the Bar Standards Board that he would no longer do this.

The tribunal found that following the cancellation of the firm’s registration in August 2017, the firm essentially carried on as it had been before, under the appellant’s supervision. The tribunal said that in his evidence given before them, the appellant accepted that he continued to supervise the immigration advisers until December 2020. He had said that this was while waiting for the Solicitors Regulatory Authority to clarify the position of a solicitor and whether the solicitor could supervise the advisers instead. The tribunal found that “it was clear from his evidence that he knew that he intended to continue his supervision in this way” at the time he told both the BSB and OISC that he had stopped.

The appeal of the tribunal’s decision

On 11 December 2024 the appellant appealed the decision under section 24 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which provides for a right of appeal to the High Court on matters relating to the regulation of barristers. The initial appellant’s notice was filed with grounds of appeal stating that full grounds were to follow.

Despite chasing from the BSB, further grounds were not filed until 1 and 2 July 2025. The appellant then also sought an adjournment of the hearing, which was presumably refused as the hearing took place on 15 July 2025.

The grounds of appeal were summarised as follows:

i) Ground 1: The Upper Tribunal (“UT”) has made findings favourable to the relevant immigration case workers.

ii) Ground 2: The Tribunal erred by refusing Mr Dean’s application for an adjournment in light of the UT proceedings.

iii) Ground 3: The Tribunal erred as Mr Dean had not in fact been supervising the old firm but rather a “new entity”.

iv) Ground 4: The sanction of disbarment was disproportionate.

The first ground appears to relate to the fact that the Upper Tribunal (presumably the Administrative Appeals Chamber) granted permission to one of the firm’s caseworkers to appeal the First-Tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber)’s decision to uphold OISC’s cancellation of their registration. However, despite the grant of permission, the Upper Tribunal went on to dismiss the appeal, meaning that the First-tier’s decision stands. This ground of appeal was dismissed as being without merit.

In relation to the second ground, the appellant argued that an adjournment should have been granted until after the outcome of the Upper Tribunal case referred to above. The tribunal had dismissed this on the grounds that the outcome was not relevant. The High Court also dismissed this ground of appeal, referring to the appellant’s “significant and acknowledged delay in preparing for his appeal and seeking representation was not conducive to a request for an adjournment”.

The third ground of appeal involved an argument that the appellant was not actually supervising the firm “Ebrahim & Co” because it had ceased trading after being suspended on 31 August 2017. He argued that he was instead “acting on behalf of a “new entity” formed by himself and Mr Akhtar” (the solicitor mentioned above).

The BSB described the argument as “hard to understand” (glad it was not just me) and “hopeless”. The High Court said that the “argument lacks cogency” and that “Mr Dean’s attempt to redefine the entity he supervised does not alter the fundamental finding that he facilitated unregulated immigration advice after the firm’s registration was cancelled, a core breach of his professional obligations”. The ground was dismissed.

The final ground of appeal was that the sanction was disproportionate. Here, the High Court reminded itself of the significant deference to be afforded to specialist disciplinary tribunals such as the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. The court said that “Mr Dean’s assertion of disproportionate sanction is unsupported by any specific arguments identifying exceptional circumstances, which might suggest a departure from the strong presumption of disbarment for dishonesty”. The fourth ground also failed and the appeal was dismissed.

Conclusion

Situations like this are what led to the changes were made in early 2020, although here the issues preceded that change. Supervision of immigration advisers by a person who is external to the advising organisation is still permitted in certain circumstances, but anyone doing so must be absolutely confident that they understand and are complying with the requirements by all relevant regulatory bodies.