Phil Shiner has admitted paying an agent to find him clients and acting improperly in claiming UK army mistreated civilians

A human rights lawyer who was pursued by the government after an inquiry rejected allegations that British troops murdered and tortured Iraqi civilians has admitted paying a middle man to find his clients in Iraq.



Phil Shiner, whose most high profile case exposed the torture and death of Baha Mousa at the hands of British troops in Basra in 2003, has admitted a string of misconduct charges, a disciplinary tribunal was told on Thursday.

Shiner faces being struck off by the solicitors disciplinary tribunal – bringing to an end a career in which he has been involved in a string of cases alleging systematic brutality and torture of prisoners by British troops and in doing so becoming a thorn in the side of the Ministry of Defence.

The MoD has paid out more than £20m in compensation to more than 300 Iraqi civilians and the international criminal court is examining the way the British government is investigating hundreds of allegations against British troops.

The tribunal was told on Thursday that Shiner had sent a letter admitting eight allegations of acting without integrity, including one charge that he acted improperly at a press conference in 2008 where he claimed the British army had unlawfully killed, tortured and mistreated Iraqi civilians at the battle of Danny Boy, near Amara in southern Iraq on 14 May 2004.



Shiner admitted nine more charges in part, accepting that he acted without integrity but denying dishonesty.

The admissions include that he encouraged and authorised an agent – referred to as Z – to make unsolicited direct approaches to potential clients arising from the 2014 battle of Danny Boy, near Amara in Iraq; that he provided financial benefits to Z to cause or persuade him to change his evidence about how the clients had been identified; and that he on several occasions authorised, procured and approved the payment to Z of improper fees, including a £25,000 payment on 30 March 2009. For the latter charge he denied that the fee related to legal aid cases.

He has denied six allegations including misleading the £23m al-Sweady inquiry and the legal services commission over legal aid grants. A full hearing will now take place on 23 January next year.

Andrew Tabachnik, putting the case against Shiner for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), said: “Even on the basis of his own admissions, Professor Shiner accepts this tribunal must strike him off at the end of this case.”

The disciplinary case against Shiner was brought after the Al-Sweady inquiry, set up to examine whether British soldiers tortured and murdered detainees following the battle of Danny Boy, concluded in 2014 that the most serious claims brought were “the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”.

The claims brought by Shiner’s Birmingham-based firm, Public Interest Lawyers, and another leading law firm, Leigh Day, fell apart when a letter was disclosed showing that some of the Iraqis were not civilians but members of the rebel Mahdi army.

The then defence secretary, Michael Fallon, blamed the lawyers involved and branded their actions a shameful attempt to use the legal system to attack and falsely impugn the armed forces.

Fallon accused Shiner’s firm of failing to cooperate with the royal military police’s initial inquiry into the incident, described his firm as having a “lucrative business model” and announced the SRA was investigating the firm.

In February 2015 the MoD submitted a dossier of allegations against Shiner and his firm to the SRA, drawn up on the orders of the then prime minister, David Cameron.

The MoD dossier detailed a series of allegations against Shiner and his firm and called for him to be fined and struck off. The document’s allegations appear to make up a large proportion of the charges against Shiner which were published on Thursday by the SRA.

Shiner has not commented on the admissions. In interviews last year he denied wrongdoing and responded to the specific allegation that he used an agent, saying the MoD had failed to mention that its own Iraq historical allegations team (Ihat) also used and regularly paid the same agent to act as a chaperone for victims and witnesses.

Shiner also accused the government of pursuing a personal vendetta against him in revenge for his work gathering hundreds of cases against British forces in Iraq.

In August this year Shiner’s firm ceased operation after being stripped of its legal aid funding. At the time the prime minister, Theresa May, was said in a No 10 statement to be “very much pleased” at the closure of the firm as it reflected the government’s clampdown on “these types of spurious claims”.

Her statement said: “The closure of PIL shows that we are making progress … tackling these types of firms head on to make sure we get the right outcome for our armed forces who show such bravery in the most difficult circumstances.”