JUSTICE FOR SALE

Date: 23 June 2002STOLEN certificates are being sold to failed law students so they can go on to become solicitors.

The scam is being operated from a strip club by a man who calls himself Jam.

For pounds 1,500 the students get a blank legal practice course certificate to fill in, which has been stolen from the London campus of the College Of Law Of England And Wales.

Armed with the fake certificate they can join law practices as trainees - and then two years later become fully-qualified solicitors.

And just in case the practice checks their records with the college, Jam also promises to alter their exam results from "fail" to "pass" on the computer system.

A Sunday Mirror investigator posing as a failed College of Law student last week bought one of the certificates from Jam.

He arranged to hand it over at the Nag's Head strip bar near Aldgate East tube station in East London.

He boasted that an insider at the college was stealing the certificates to order - and that he had just received nine.

He said: "Here's one of their LPC (Legal Practice Course) certificates with the watermark and everything.

"It's got a stamp on it like an MOT certificate."

Jam said the normal fee for a certificate was pounds 400 to pounds 500 but he would sell our investigator three for pounds 1,000.

He wanted another pounds 1,000 to create the false computer records to back-up the forged certificates.

He said: "I've done it quite a few times now. Several people are already using the certificates and getting away with it."

Jam told our investigator to photocopy the certificate - which was stamped with a water-mark and had an embossed college crest on - so he could practice using a computer to print his name on it.

He said: "It's an original certificate and you have to print the details on.

"You might put, 'This is to certify that so-and-so has successfully completed a Legal Practice Course course with merit,' something like that.

"Just copy exactly the way it is written on a proper certificate."

He then sketched an example of a fully-completed certificate on the back of an envelope, adding: "You have to sign it off with two people, the college director Richard De Friend and the student services manager Lesley Hill."

Jam claimed many of his customers are foreign trainee lawyers studying in Britain.

Many had failed the course despite spending thousands of pounds on fees.

He said: "That's why they use me. These certificates are very good for using abroad.

Jam said several Nigerians had also used the certificates to get grants and bank loans secured against their future earnings as solicitors.

The College, which has campuses in Chester, Guildford and York as well as London, is the oldest legal school in Britain - and until recently the only college allowed to train solicitors.

Last night, as hundreds of genuine certificates were being sent out to this year's students, the college was launching an investigation.

Chief executive Nigel Savage said: "We are shocked that someone has been selling certificates bearing our name and would like to thank the Sunday Mirror for bringing this to our attention.

"We are taking urgent steps to review the process for authenticating certificates to ensure that there will be no question about the validity of any certificates issued by the college in future."

The Sunday Mirror dossier of evidence is available to the police.

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