A former solicitor who was struck off for failing to transfer her client’s £132,000 divorce settlement received a suspended prison sentence at the Old Bailey yesterday.
Her Honour Judge Trowler KC sentenced Analiza Kjaer, 50, to two years imprisonment, suspended for two years.
The court heard that Kjaer, admitted in 2005 and struck off in 2022, pleaded guilty last year to one offence of fraud by abuse of position between July 2020 and June 2021.
At the time, Kjaer was representing a wife in divorce proceedings and a £132,000 settlement was paid by the husband into the law firm’s client account in three equal instalments. The money was not transferred to the wife, who eventually reported Kjaer to the police and Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Trowler said Kjaer dealt with her client’s money ‘as though it belonged to you’. Payments included money owed to HM Revenue & Customs. Following intervention by the SRA, the client received £132,000 from the Compensation Fund and £64,000 that remained in the client account was paid to the Compensation Fund.
Following an SRA investigation, Kjaer was struck off the roll on 8 December 2022, the court heard. Trowler said Kjaer was in Italy throughout this period, practising remotely as a solicitor. She returned in March 2023 and was arrested at Gatwick Airport. Kjaer was interviewed the following day and gave a prepared statement in which she admitted the offence and attributed the reasons for her actions on ‘escaping an abusive marriage’, Trowler said.
The court heard that in her victim impact statement, the client said she ‘fell apart’ as a result of Kjaer’s offending. Not receiving the funds caused the client ‘great distress, she was unable to sleep and she lost weight and had to move into her daughter’s home temporarily, then rented accommodation until she received the funds by way of compensation to enable her to obtain a permanent home. She was unable to purchase the kind of home she planned to buy in 2021 because by the time she did purchase a home, property prices were higher’.
Trowler said the offence was ‘plainly committed out of desperation against the background of mistreatment by your husband’ and the ‘personal mitigation’ in Kjaer’s case was ‘certainly relevant to why you became as desperate as you were’. Kjaer expressed ‘genuine remorse’ through her counsel and a letter she wrote to the client in January.
Trowler told the court she was exercising her discretion to suspend a sentence of imprisonment. Kjaer must also complete 100 hours of unpaid work.
