John Blavo ran Blavo & Co. solicitors. He specialised in mental health law and clinical negligence.

But his real speciality was creating fake legal aid cases and charging the government for non-existent cases.

In fact, over 23,000 such fake cases in three years.

He and his family lived the high life – mansions, supercars, holidays around the world etc.

His company doesn’t seem to have been especially talented at making the fake cases – but the Legal Aid Agency carried on paying out even when there were no records of the cases he was claiming for.

Eventually the Legal Aid agency did begin to suspect and started to investigate.

Between April 2012 and March 2015, he claimed fees from for representing clients at mental health tribunals in 24,658 cases but only 1,485 cases had actually happened.

In November 2015, Blavo & Co. was shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

A high court judge ruled that although Blavo & Co was doing about 1,000 cases per year they were claiming for about 9,000.

As sole shareholder of Blavo and Co, John Blavo was ordered to pay back £22 million but he has not actually been convicted of any offence yet. He is under investigation, but why are the Police taking so long?

No wonder the legal aid is so high if this shows the quality of checks they make before paying out.

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