A Birmingham lawyer accused of hounding British soldiers who served in Iraq and drumming up false claims of abuse has been struck off.
Phil Shiner worked for the now-defunct Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) which received millions of pounds in legal aid to sue the Ministry of Defence.
He had previously admitted nine allegations of acting without integrity, including “cold calling” potential Iraqi clients.
Mr Shiner had admitted acting recklessly by claiming at a press conference in February 2008 that the British Army had unlawfully killed, tortured and mistreated Iraqi civilians during the Iraq War battle.
He also allegedly offered “sweeteners” in the way of payment to a fixer to change evidence on how he had identified clients to go before the Al-Sweady Inquiry into the deaths of 20 Iraqis.
Mr Shiner did not attend the Solicitors Regulation Authority disciplinary hearing after previously asking for an adjournment by claiming he was not well enough - and did not have money to instruct a defence.
But Andrew Tabachnik, representing the SRA, accused him of being “in a state of avoidance” to prevent proceedings from going ahead.
The tribunal heard the effects of Mr Shiner’s involvement on British military personnel in “cold-calling” the family members of alleged Iraqi victims.
Army Colonel James Coote, who was stationed in Basra, said the false claims made against British troops at the Battle of Danny Boy in 2004 had been “extremely stressful and demoralising”.
The hearing was told that Mr Shiner agreed to pay Iraqi middleman Abu Jamal, named only as “Z” in SRA papers, thousands of pounds for referrals, which is prohibited.
As a team leader at PIL, Mr Shiner authorised and procured payments and fee-sharing agreements with the agent between 2007 and 2010.
One of those payments was for £25,000 on March 30 2009, which he admitted but had denied it related to a publicly funded case, as the SRA alleged.
Mr Shiner was struck off the roll of solicitors after the string of misconduct and dishonesty charges against him were found proved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Nicola Lucking, chairwoman of the disciplinary panel, said: “We have come to the conclusion the appropriate sanction is a strike off.”
The panel previously heard claims Mr Shiner was fed names of Iraqis willing to sue British troops by a ‘fixer’ who got £1.6million.
Mazin Younis, 59, allegedly cashed in as claims of abuse he helped to source poured in.
Mr Shiner was allegedly paying him £500 a time to find clients.
