A bogus legal adviser, Cephas Matanhire who conned Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK of thousands of pounds has been jailed for 15 months.
According to the GazetteLive and Northern Echo, Matanhire swindled people who sought legal advice on immigration affairs by falsely claiming to be a legal expert and made more than £7,000 in the scheme.
After hearing of his scam, a judge at the Teeside Crown Court labelled the 50-year-old as “manipulative, unscrupulous, dishonest and deceitful”.
Matanhire allegedly set up a company by the name of ‘Staff Scene Agency and Legal Advisors’, based at Broadcasting House in Middlesbrough. He charged customers but did not provide the service he promised.
The court heard how the defendant took £675 from Onitter Mabuza, connected with her Home Office application in 2006. He also obtained £1,780 from Patsekile Ruth Mamba over the immigration status of her two sons between January and August 2007.
And the fraud charge between January and May 2007 concerned an application by Evelyn Mhande. Here, Matanhire intended to make £5,273. The prosecutor said the total amount illegally gained was £7,728.
Defending, Matanhire’s lawyer said: “On the face of it he appears to have done very little for people, or apparently, nothing at all. The Judge described Matanhire as “manipulative, unscrupulous, dishonest and deceitful”.
“What you did was to take money from desperate, vulnerable people on the pretext you were going to help them and yet you didn’t. New from the two publications attracted a large influx of comments from readers on Saturday.
“You have no genuine remorse for what you did and no empathy for your victims,” he said.
