Solicitor haunted by fraud case is driven to suicide

Rannee Bassi, a mother of three, was cleared of any wrongdoing but never recovered from the stress of the investigation, her family said.

The 50-year-old was accused of fraudulently claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal aid for invented clients.

She campaigned to clear her name and produced witness statements from doctors and immigration officials who vouched that the clients did exist.

Her efforts paid off - but the probe by the Legal Services Commission left her firm, Bassi Solicitors, in financial crisis.

She felt her reputation had been damaged beyond repair, and lost faith in legal aid work, her husband Manga Powar said.

'My wife was a very respected lawyer. She helped many people in ethnic minority communities who felt they had no voice.

'But word somehow got out that we were being investigated for fraud. Rannee felt the firm had been tarred with a brush and that clients and other professionals were treating her differently.

'She was mortified. She did everything she could to prove that these people existed, but then the commission suddenly switched the focus of the investigation to say she was claiming for more hours than she was working.'

Her brother Mandeep Bassi, a criminal lawyer with Mann & Co, said he had contacted the commission to explain the effect the inquiry was having on his sister's health.

She was depressed, he said, and at one stage she had been found wandering on the motorway in the middle of the night.

'Professional integrity was everything to her and she felt hers had

been besmirched beyond repair,' Mr Bassi said.

When her much-adored father died around the same time, her depression deepened.

On May 29 this year, while her three children, aged seven to 13, were with their father at the family home in Great Barr, Birmingham, Mrs Bassi sat alone in her office from 7pm.

Hours later, she erected a makeshift noose and hanged herself. She was found by her husband, who managed her practice, the following morning when he arrived for work. Mr Powar said: 'I thought she

was at her mother's house. I knew that my wife was affected by her father's death that happened during the inquiry.

'But the investigation was the start and end of everything.

'Rannee loved her children very, very much but she was just tipped over the edge by the stress of being portrayed as corrupt.'

A spokesman for the Legal Services Commission expressed regret at the death, but said the inquiry was necessary because of the need to properly account for public funds.

Mrs Bassi was initially accused of receiving at least 30 per cent more money than she was entitled to. While the inquiry was being conducted the commission reduced her firm's monthly payments from the usual £25,000 to £10,000.

Afterwards, it handed over £90,000 for previously disputed legal aid work carried out from March 2004 to January 2005.

Mr Powar said: 'My wife was finally vindicated by the inquiry but it ruined her life - and ultimately cost her her life. It should never have happened.'

He added: 'I've got to bring the boys up by myself and I'm going to close Rannee's company. All this - and for what?'