A bent Thai lawyer, who ripped off a 14 year-old wheelchair-bound girl after a road accident, has been sent down for six years.
The sentence handed down at a Taling Chan court is to start immediately.
Phisit Sammalert, 60, conned the girl and made off with her 5 million in compensation following the accident in Surat Thani several years ago.
The case came to light earlier this year when reporters found the girl and her mother selling trinkets at a temple in an effort to make ends meet.
Phisit admitted the charges.
Two other female defendants in the case – Pornpanee Chukaew and Thitapha Sawatdee – deny falsifying documents and their fates will be decided later.
The full story of events follows.
A family whose lives were devastated by a road accident 12 years ago say they have been conned out of compensation by a bent lawyer.
Thai news media caught up with Pornthip Jantharat, 44, and her daughter Beam, 14, at the temple of Wat Cholaprathan in Nonthaburi, Bangkok.
Mother and daughter are well known in the area to locals and monks. Beam and her mum sell items to people at funerals and suchlike to make ends meet.
They clearly are devoted to each other but few know the heartache and hardship they have had to face after what happened to them in Surat Thani in 2005.
They were travelling in a pick-up that was hit by an 18 wheel truck. Beam’s father was killed, her mother was seriously injured and Beam was left in a wheelchair for life.
A lawyer called Phisit Sammalert kindly offered to help with their case.
After legal wranglings he told the mother and daughter that he had managed to get them one million baht compensation that would be paid in 40,000 baht monthly installments.
He said that he was unable to travel to have them sign the papers related to this but he would transfer the cash each month. This he did but after only seven months of payment he disappeared.
Calls to his mobile went unanswered.
Desperate the family went to investigate at the court and discovered to their horror that the truck company had in fact paid a lump sum of five million baht that went to the lawyer, the mother claimed.
It should have then gone to the family.
Happily, the despicable lawyer was finally traced and charged and he is now where he undoubtedly belongs.
(Source:-Manager)