Six months jail after Graham conviction

LONDON solicitor Hemamali Graham was last week sentenced to six months in prison after being convicted of attempting to obtain property by deception.

Judge Jeremy Fordham, who sentenced Graham at the Inner London Crown Court last Monday, said that she had "deliberately and dishonestly" made a false mortgage application to the Yorkshire Building Society in 1992, and that consequently the only sentence the court could rightly hand down was a custodial one.

"The legal system in our country depends on the belief and the integrity of people in your position," said Fordham. "You have breached that integrity."

The court heard that Graham, who is one of two founding partners of now defunct partnership Graham Peries & Co, had been in an "irrational state of mind" after the collapse of the firm, and that she had also had personal problems.

Graham and her former partner Indrani Peries are currently facing a number of writs from former clients who claim that they lodged passports and money in support of visa applications with the firm.

Two former clients - Anand Tripathi and Harjit Kaur - have already instructed London firm Bolt Burdon, and other writs are also known to have been lodged.

The Graham Peries & Co partnership was recently ordered to pay $69,979 to another client.