Shazia Anjum

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Shazia Anjum, an unregistered barrister, faced 11 charges across three matters. The Bar Disciplinary Tribunal found all charges proved in her absence. The first matter concerned her being struck off the Roll of Solicitors (SDT decision 10 Feb 2021) for dishonest dealings with client funds and attempting to divert client funds from a frozen account, together with failures to report those proceedings/findings to the BSB. The other matters concerned her repeatedly holding herself out as a practising barrister and offering immigration legal services when not authorised, on social media and her website. The Tribunal relied on the SDT's dishonesty findings, which were undisturbed. She was disbarred on the first charge sheet, and given consecutive 12-month suspensions (24 months total) on the other two charge sheets, and ordered to pay BSB costs of £3,480 (incl VAT).

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Report serious misconduct of others
• Not misrepresent regulated status

Aggravating factors:

• Disregard of express BSB warning letter dated 21 May 2020
• Deliberate and persistent public misrepresentation of her status as a barrister over a prolonged period
• Misrepresentation potentially made to vulnerable people sought as clients
• Multiple instances across various platforms
• No insight or remorse shown; failure to engage with proceedings
• Conduct put the public at risk