Solicitor fined for breach of immigration law
A qualified solicitor and British Labour Party councillor has been fined £40,000 at City of London county court.
Hina Mir (45) hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny and paid her cash in hand, the court heard.
The solicitor and politician gave Indian national Himanshi Gongley £1,200 a month to care for her two children.
Expired student visa
But Gongley, who was 22 at the time, had no legal right to work in England and was in the country on an expired student visa.
Mir – a Labour councillor in West London’s Hounslow –was caught when the nanny flagged down a police car last year.
The nanny claimed she was being abused by her employers, who kept her on 24-hour call, six days a week.
Mir, who stated that she was a devout Muslim, was Hounslow deputy mayor in 2020.
She was fined £40,000 last January for an immigration-law breach.
Lost appeal
The qualified solicitor has now lost an appeal against the fine at City of London county court (3 December).
The judge said her evidence had “inconsistencies”.
Judge Stephen Hellman said: “The inconsistencies in the appellant’s evidence mean I cannot place much reliance on her evidence as I normally would.”
Mir was also allegedly caught illegally parking her BMW in a disabled bay, while she attended a council meeting last week.