[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] A legal firm that spent a decade hounding British troops is to shut down.After being stripped of public money Public Interest Lawyers will close at the end of this month.
Hundreds of service personnel will now escape being dragged into a taxpayer-funded witch-hunt.
Nearly 200 compensation claims made by suspected Iraqi bully boyz will be thrown out and more than 1,000 potential claims scrapped. Phil Shiner, who ran PIL, may now face charges because the National Crime Agency is investigating the law firm.
The development is a victory for the Daily Mail, which has exposed the tactics of the ambulance-chasing solicitors. These include using touts to drum up business in Iraq in breach of legal rules.
The collapse of PIL emerged in a document it submitted to the High Court at the start of this month. It asked judges to make an order that it had ceased to act for 187 Iraqi claimants due to its ’permanent closure’.
In a subsequent letter seen by the Mail, PIL told its clients it was closing on August 31 and would no longer act on their behalf. The 187 cases will not now come before the courts ‐ and neither will another 1,100 compensation claims the legal firm planned to lodge.