War crimes inquiry lawyer struck off for misconduct
Public Interest Lawyers’ solicitor Prof Phil Shiner has been struck off after being found guilty of misconduct for his role in an Iraq war crimes inquiry that collapsed.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal also ordered the Birmingham solicitor to pay interim costs of £250,000.
The £25m Al-Sweady inquiry investigated allegations of unlawful killing and ill treatment of Iraqi nationals by British troops in Iraq in 2004. When it reported in December 2014 it found the claims to be “deliberate lies”.
Shiner had admitted nine counts of acting without integrity and one of acting recklessly, but another five counts of dishonesty were found to be proven.
In a prosecution brought by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the Tribunal found allegations of misconduct when representing claims against British soldiers – including acting dishonestly – proven to the criminal standard of proof.
A second solicitor from PIL, John Dickinson, was reprimanded by the SDT and ordered to pay £2,000 costs after it was admitted and found that he failed to keep the Al-Sweady clients properly informed as to the progress of the Inquiry.
It had previously been announced that Public Interest Lawyers would close.
Paul Philip, SRA chief executive, said: “We welcome the SDT’s decision to strike off Professor Shiner, who has been found to have been dishonest. It is important that solicitors can bring forward difficult cases, but the public must be able to place their trust in them.
“His misconduct has caused real distress to soldiers, their families and to the families of Iraqi people who thought that their loved ones had been murdered or tortured. More than £30m of public funds were spent on investigating what proved to be false and dishonest allegations.”
Shiner ran Public Interest Lawyers in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter for 15 years, until November 2014, before becoming head of strategic litigation at newly-formed NGO named Public Interest Lawyers (International). He also became a professor of law at Middlesex University in the autumn of 2014.
