A DISGRACED SNP councillor who lied in court in an attempt to divorce his wife on the cheap is facing an estimated £50,000 bill for her legal costs.
Dr Imtiaz Majid has been ordered to pay his wife’s full costs, on top of £150,000 he was recently ordered to pay her to address the “economic imbalance” in their marriage.
At a hearing at Airdrie Sheriff Court, Sheriff Morag Galbraith, who heard 11 days of testimony on the couple’s divorce action earlier this year, awarded all costs to Uzma Majid.
Dr Majid now is now liable for the bill for her legal team, which included advocate Charlotte Coutts and solicitor Mohammed Sabir of Edinburgh’s MBS Solicitors.
The North Lanarkshire councillor also faces costs for his own lawyer.
The Herald revealed on Monday how Sheriff Galbraith heavily criticised Dr Majid's evidence in the divorce action he brought against the 42-year-old mother-of-two.
Sheriff Galbraith concluded Dr Majid had lied to deny his wife a fair settlement, and had hidden his wealth and pretended to lose a fortune through gambling in order to plead poverty.
Some of his evidence was “a complete fabrication” and “totally incredible”, she said.
She also criticised Dr Majid’s brothers, Sarfraz and Asif, after they tried to back up his evidence, calling all three men and “evasive” and not “credible at all”.
The sheriff’s judgment also revealed Uzma fled to a woman’s refuge in London in 2006 after less than four years of marriage.
Dr Majid, 51, almost became the MP for Coatbridge, Chryston & Bellshill last year after being endorsed by the then SNP cabinet secretaries Alex Neil and Keith Brown.
But he failed vetting, and the seat was won by the SNP’s Phil Boswell instead.
After the judgment was reported, SNP sources indicated Dr Majid would be blocked from standing as a party candidate in next May’s elections.
Although Dr Majid intends to appeal Sheriff Galbraith’s original judgment and £150,000 award, this does not affect the award of costs against him.
Mr Sabir, Principal Solicitor at MBS, said: “The Sheriff’s judgment comes as a welcome relief for my client. My client is happy that her voice has been heard and that Justice has been done.
“Mrs Majid has been required to live in dire circumstances during ten long years. The award will bring some form of stability for her and the parties’ children.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here