Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2003 9:40:47 GMT -6
Killer-turned-solicitor prompts Law Society inquiry
An Old Bailey judge last week called on Chancery Lane to launch an inquiry into how a convicted killer came to work as a solicitor.
Tokunbo Okunola, who worked at the Brixton Law Centre, received a second life sentence at the Old Bailey for attempting to murder his estranged wife.
Judge Giles Forrester called for a Law Society inquiry into the matter.
"I trust the Law Society will wish to investigate the circumstances in which he was admitted to their roll and able to practise in criminal law as an employee and as a partner in various firms of solicitors," the judge said.
"I think the public is entitled to know that a thorough review of this case will take place."
A transcript of his remarks was sent to Chancery Lane, and the judge asked to be kept informed of progress.
Okunola had claimed he was under a voodoo curse when he threw a firebomb into the home of his estranged wife, Diane Ward, and then stabbed her as she escaped the blaze.
After their verdict last week, jurors were told that Okunola had been jailed for life at the age of 17 in 1977 at the Old Bailey for killing Stephen Scott.
He was released on licence in June 1994, but the licence has now been revoked and he is currently serving the first life term. He qualified as a solicitor in 1996 and had worked at the Brixton Law
Centre shortly before the attack on his wife.
Apparently, Okunola had made a "full and proper disclosure" of his past in his application to be a solicitor. A Law Society spokesman said that being a convicted murderer was not an automatic bar to becoming a solicitor and that each case was "assessed
individually".
|
|
|
|
Post by Donnie on Feb 15, 2004 19:33:53 GMT -6
If the murderer is out on the street, then he has "paid his debt to society".
Since the victim is still dead when the murderer is free, that must mean that the victim still hasn't paid his "debt to society".
|
|
