A former Brighton and Hove City Council planning officer faces has been spared a prison sentence after faking her qualifications and pretending to be a barrister.
Monika Juneja, 36, was given a 14-month prison sentence suspended for two years at the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, in London.
Judge Gerald Gordon also ordered her to do 200 hours of community service.
He told Juneja that she had lived a lie because she wanted the status, the standing in the community and the prospect of advancement.
Juneja, of Doverfield Road, Guildford, worked for Brighton and Hove City Council briefly in 2009, giving planning advice.
She later became deputy leader of Conservative-controlled Guildford Borough Council.
In May she admitted three counts of forgery, one count of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and one of pretending to be a barrister.
She denied three counts of fraud. Judge Gordon ordered the fraud charges to lie on file.
Her deception dates back to 2000 and continued until her arrest in May last year.
Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Ms Juneja worked as an agency locum planning lawyer for Brighton and Hove for five weeks, from 5 March to 19 April 2009, giving low-level planning advice for the legal team under the supervision of a senior planning lawyer.”
Kate Wilkinson, prosecuting, said that Juneja had lied repeatedly about her degree from Greenwich University and the outcome of her studies at the BPP law school.
She graduated with a third class degree in sociology but forged a letter from the university saying that she had a 2:1.
At BPP she declared “not competent in law” but forged a document so that it read “very competent in law”.
After leaving Brighton and Hove she worked as a barrister in Buckingham and a lawyer for the London Borough of Enfield.
But she wouldn’t have got any of the jobs had the truth been known – and she had benefited from a higher earning potential, the court was told.
She was caught out by residents who investigated her after she put forward unpopular housing proposals for the green belt in the draft local plan.
