Glam barrister plotted revenge assault with assassin as a part of gangland turf conflict
Samreen Akhtar was recorded encouraging career criminal Tabish Ali to track down a gunman who had shot him during a bloody feud between rival gangs in West Yorkshire
Samreen Akhtar encouraged Tabish Ali to avenge a gun attack(Image: Bar Council)
A poster girl barrister has been jailed for plotting a revenge attack with her gangster client as part of a bloody turf war. Samreen Akhtar was recorded encouraging career criminal Tabish Ali to track down a gunman who had shot him in Huddersfield, West Yorks.
She was heard suggesting that they “locate and cause serious harm” to the would-be assassin who had tried to kill him in 2021, prosecutors said.
Akhtar, 38, was sentenced to three years and three months behind bars after jurors at Manchester Crown Court found her guilty of encouraging or assisting grievous bodily harm with intent.
Akhtar, from Huddersfield, used professional contacts to involve herself in the aftermath of the shooting
Her involvement in the violent turf war marked a huge fall from grace for the lawyer, who was the youngest barrister on the Midlands Circuit at the time she completed her pupillage.
Akhtar, who is of Pashtun heritage, previously told the Asian Standard newspaper how she broke from tradition by studying beyond 16. The Bar Council said it hoped barristers like her would inspire others from underprivileged backgrounds to think about a law career.
In 2020, the council selected Akhtar as one of 10 social mobility advocates, as part of its #IAmTheBar campaign which celebrated the achievements of young barristers who had attended state schools and grown up in deprived areas.
Akhtar was jailed for three years and three months(Image: West Yorkshire Police)
But she was arrested in March 2022 by West Yorkshire Police’s Economic Crime Unit as part of a probe into an escalating turf war between drug dealing gangs, which had involved multiple violent and firearms incidents since 2018.
The attempted murder shooting of Ali in 2021 was believed to have been linked to this ongoing feud, police said.
Ali, Of Cleckheaton, West Yorks., was later charged with the murder of Jamal Nedd, who had been shot and fatally wounded outside his home in December 2020 as he drove his mother to work.
He was later convicted of his murder and given a life sentence along with two other men in July 2022.
Tabish Ali and two other men were convicted of murdering Jamal Nedd(Image: West Yorkshire Police)
Detective Inspector Paul Hutchinson said: “As a professional working in the criminal justice system, Samreen Akhtar would have been acutely aware of her legal and moral responsibilities.
“But she chose to act outside of those to plot revenge with a dangerous criminal involved in a violent gang feud which included the brutal execution of a rival, for which he was later convicted.
“In doing so, she became a criminal herself and showed a complete disregard for the standards that are expected of those in the legal profession, and also for the significant negative impact that gang-related violence and criminality have on our communities.”
