A BURNLEY solicitor has been found guilty of breaking accounts rules after being connected to an immigration advisor jailed for a passport scandal.

Munsif Mirza, 68, of Stafford Street, was fined £1,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

He did not attend the hearing but was found guilty of three breaches of accounts rules in his absence yesterday.

Mirza is a former partner of Manchester solicitor Abdus Bhatti whose firm's name was found on headed note paper used by a refugees' welfare centre.

Abdulah Azad, who ran the centre, was jailed for three and a half years after he was caught with two forged passports.

When investigators raided Bhatti's office he said his books were up to date - but they had not been properly written up for almost two years.

The hearing also heard that although Bhatti insisted he was properly insured he had not given all his correct details to his broker and there was a £5,975 'black hole' in his client accounts.

Bhatti, 61, denied the allegations but was found guilty of 10 accounts rules breaches, wrongly permitting his firm to be associated with the welfare centre, allowing it to use his note paper, failing to provide information to his insurers, failing to have adequate measures for supervision, permitting misleading information to be given to the Law Society and giving misleading information to an investigating officer.

Bhatti was struck off and ordered to pay costs of £5,890.

Inspectors had visited the firm Bhatti on Stockport Road, Manchester, on June 17 2002 and the firm was taken over by the Law Society in October that year.

The Law Society said that Bhatti misled them when he told them partner Abdul Wahid was a registered foreign lawyer practicing in Manchester. But he did not have leave to live in the UK and had never practiced here.

Bhatti worked with the welfare centre run by Azad from a building surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of a housing estate and was keen to take it over.

By allowing the centre to be associated with Bhatti he conferred false status upon the organisation.

Bhatti admitted that when the inspector Adrian Smith, who is an accountant, came to his offices he offered to pay him to "do the books for him".

But the solicitor had insisted his note paper had been used without his consent and that Wahid's name had appeared on the letterhead as only "an honour" to him.