Lawyer avoids Jail for Possessing 14,000 Child Sex Abuse Files

A banking solicitor named Mohamed Ismail Faliq who is 35 years old walked free from court on October 30, 2020, with a suspended sentence after being arrested for possession of child sex abuse files.

Despite being caught with over 14,000 obscene videos and images of children, Ismail who trained with Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance was spared any jail time.

During the hearing, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, he pleaded guilty to storing 1076 videos and 2173 images of serious category child sex abuse material. He also confessed to owning 221 and 2476 category B videos and stills respectively.

Faliq was also guilty of distributing these child sex abuse files online to other paedophiles and networks involved with child paedophilia.

Having left Clifford Chance when he qualified in 2013, he then went to work at K&L Gates, Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Proctor.

It is understood that Ismail was working at Coutts at the time of his arrest.

Roll On Friday reports that the in-house solicitor lives in a flat in Chelsea and was described as “extremely brash and flamboyant” by a source.

Ismail maintained an “extremely showy-offy” Instagram account, said a source, where he posted “hundreds of pictures of himself with expensive (ladies) handbags and at fine dining places”.

The account, which has now been made private, was called ‘gildedyouths’.

A spokesperson for NatWest, which owns Coutts, said Ismail had now left the business.

“We can confirm that the individual is no longer employed by the bank.”

According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), a spokesman commented on Faliq’s arrest, saying:

“We are aware of the issue, and await conclusion of proceedings before gathering all relevant information and deciding on appropriate action.”

Faliq who studied in Singapore now joins an exclusive list of sex offenders and can be counted among one of the estimated 300,000 paedophiles who pose a threat to children either online or in-person according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

This figure which was drawn from an NCA strategic assessment – showed a “terrifying escalation of the threat”.

The outbreak of Covid-19 and associated lockdown measures have impacted the risk to children. The NCA warns that there is an increased risk of children being exposed to online predators due to children being indoors more often and using online devices.

Police are currently arresting more than 500 suspected child sex offenders and safeguarding around 700 children on average every month in the United Kingdom.