A former Calderdale councillor has avoided jail after trying to help immigrants.

Chaudhry Saghir, 72, admitted five offences of providing immigration advice when he was not registered to do so.

The 72-year-old has already spent time behind bars for committing the same offences before.

But Leeds Crown Court heard today how he continued to give immigration advice between 2008 and 2017.

By law anyone providing immigration advice or services must be regulated by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), unless a member of a designated professional body such as the Law Society.

Leeds Crown Court heard Saghir, trading as the Cashmere Foundation, has unsuccessfully applied to the OISC several times.

Recorder David Gordon said: “In 2009, an investigation was carried out but it was decided not to pursue criminal charges.

“It was hoped that you had learned your lesson. Clearly you had not.”

When he was jailed in 2005, the sentencing judge described Saghir as a ‘downright liar’ who persisted offending through ‘arrogance’.

Rukhshanda Hussain, mitigating, said her client was simply someone who ‘cannot help himself from helping others around him’.

She said that the services he provided were predominately filling in forms.

The court also heard that he attended a tribunal in court intending to act as a representative and did not sign in.

A court clerk spotted him ‘acting suspciously’ and asked him if he was a representative but he denied it.

Judge Gordon said: “You clearly knew what you were doing. This was very deliberate conduct.”

Saghir, who represented the former St John’s ward on Calderdale Council from 2000 to 2004, has 41 previous convictions for nine offences including applying for a proxy vote as another person.

Ms Hussain said her client,

of Gibbet Street, Halifax, has been diagnosed with dementia and requires a lot of care, although they were not able to bring a medical note to court.

She described him as a ‘shadow of the man he was’.

The judge sentenced Saghir to 13 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and imposed a six-month curfew from 7pm-7am.

The judge said: “It was said you were very respected in the community and that is no longer true.

“If you had been a man of good health there would be no doubt you would go to prison today.”