A crooked solicitor and her partner have been jailed after being convicted of fraud and perverting the course of justice.
The conviction was made possible thanks to Thurrock Council’s national counter-fraud investigation team.
Astrid Halberstadt-Twum principal solicitor at the law firm Cleveland and Co Solicitors in Whitechapel, East London, and her husband Joseph Twum have been found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the Legal Aid Agency and of perverting the course of public justice.
The pair were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday last week.
Halbersadt-Twum was handed a prison sentence of three years in total and Twum sentenced to two-and-a-half years.
They were prosecuted thanks to a pioneering partnership between Thurrock Council’s Fraud Investigation Team, which shares its expertise nationwide as the National Counter Fraud and Investigation Directorate, and the Legal Aid Agency.
Following a judge’s ruling that the case should be prosecuted by the CPS Thurrock Council’s fraud team investigated the case and the evidence they gathered was vital in securing this prosecution.
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