A crooked lawyer escaped a jail term "by a whisker" yesterday (Wed) for selling fake Justin Bieber concert tickets to pop fans as part of a £10,000 scam.

Zainab Pervaiz, 25, conned 16 would-be gig goers, mostly in Weston-Super-Mare, into paying thousands of pounds as part of a "sophisticated and complicated" fraud over an 11-month period.

She scammed fans, who were also seeking Beyonce and Adele tickets, between August 2015 and December 2016, out of a total of £9,982.25.

The student immigration lawyer used a bank account which belonged to the grandfather of her lover Kayleigh Bicknell to funnel cash from her victims.

Last month she admitted 16 counts of fraud by false representation.

Yesterday (Wed) Pervaiz, of Walsall, West Mids., was handed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid work.

She must also pay back the £9,982.25 she swindled from her victims.

Sentencing her at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Simon Drew QC said: “So far as your conduct is concerned, it involves dishonesty over a sustained period of time.

“The individual you targeted is clearly a vulnerable victim, befriending her, using her, taking advantage of trust she placed in you, allowing you to use her eBay and bank accounts to pay money and repeatedly lying about repaying money to her grandfather and in general terms, those who lost as a result of your actions.

“The overall sums involved are considerable.

“As far as these offences are concerned they are quite serious enough - 16 separate incidents of fraud over an 11-month period.

“Each sum individually is not particularly great but in total the amount I am dealing with here approaches £10,000.

“That was £10,000 not raised in order for you to survive but essentially, as far as I read it, for you to enjoy certain luxuries in your life and no doubt maintain some debts you had incurred in the past for the same reason.

“You are someone whose expectations of life clearly far exceed your means.

“This was an abuse of position of trust, it involved significant degree of planning contracted over a sustained period of time and there were a large number of victims.

“You are of good character.

“You have lost all of that now – a career in law is almost certainly dead and buried.

“You have come within a whisker of immediate substantial period of imprisonment."

Pervaiz used social media sites to advertise tickets for music concerts by international stars including Justin Bieber, Adele, Beyonce and AC/DC.

She used fake photos of the tickets to entice buyers, receiving the payments via PayPal before transferring the money into her personal account.

The victims included the customers and her partner’s family.

Most of the offences took place in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, and Pervaiz used the Paypal account of Miss Bicknell's grandfather, who had been left more than £7,000 out of pocket.

Pervaiz moved the money from the sale of the tickets to her own personal bank account and when refunds were requested from disgruntled customers they were taken from Mr Bicknell's account.

Prosecutor Gary Cook said: "Kayleigh Bicknell was a young woman in a relationship with the defendant in 2015.

“The defendant presented herself to Kayleigh Bicknell as a solicitor – she said she had rich parents and her father co-owned Ticketmaster."

The court how Pervaiz's career in law was now in ruins after police uncovered her scam, which took place between February 2015 and December 2016.

She was also described as having "high sporting ability" and had played for the England Ladies Cricket team and trained with the England football camp.

Rachel Pennington, defending, said: "She hopes she can in some way in the future help others from losing out by offering assistance on ways in which people become prone to people like her."

Speaking after the case, Emma Tait, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Zainab Pervaiz not only abused the trust she had gained with her partner but she also abused the trust others had in her to deliver the concert tickets.

“She lured the victims into giving her money by falsely advertising highly desirable concert tickets without any intention of supplying them.

“The CPS is now taking steps to recover the money that she took.”