Disgraced lawyer ripped off his own clients + VIDEO

When Hastings resident Neville Lush turned to his lawyer to withdraw money from a family trust in 2014 the last thing he expected to hear was that the account was empty.

Three years later Mr Lush had the satisfaction of seeing his now-disgraced lawyer David John Porteous sentenced to six months' home detention for stealing almost $80,000 from clients during the latter years of a three-decade legal career.

Porteous, 66, pleaded guilty to two charges of theft by person in a special relationship in January after unassumingly misappropriating his clients' funds for years.

"He had been our lawyer for about 30 odd years. I mean you'd never expect anything like that to be going on. I just couldn't believe it," Mr Lush said.

Mr Lush and wife Morag had unknowningly been theft victims since 2009 and said they had only thought good things of Porteous, as their good friend and family lawyer, until several years ago.

The relationship was close and the two men had played bowls together for many years.

Mr Lush said what was perhaps the most frustrating part of it all was that if Porteous had asked to loan their money they would have been happy to help.

"He had to be desperate to do what he did," Mr Lush said.

"We've actually been told he would probably get home detention. Home detention [is] fine. All we wanted was the guilty plea."

When Neville Lush couldn't withdraw several thousand dollars from his family trust in 2014 for a major heart surgery he complained and Porteous proceeded to close his firm and hand in his practising certificate amid investigations into the misuse of the trust fund.

"All we wanted was him to admit that he had stolen our money and he never [did] until the 11th hour," Mr Lush said.

The couple said while they had been repaid the "majority" of the funds stolen from them, approximately $50,000, they would find it hard to trust people with money again.

Porteous appeared in the Napier District Court yesterday for the sentencing in what was described by Judge Stan Thorburn as a "sad case".

"It seems to me this is a man who got in a vortex of dishonesty which, as dishonesty does, compounded and drove him into the dilemma of continuing to make bad choices."

"He stands in the state of his life as a shamed lawyer not able to practice now having lost his reputation and having lost his friendships and having lost all material assets. He's bankrupt," Judge Thorburn said.

As one of Hastings' longest-serving lawyers, Judge Thorburn said he could not understate the importance that people in Porteous' position should be unequivocally and confidently trusted.

"It is a truly disappointing end to his career."

He was sentenced to six months' home detention, 250 hours of community work and ordered to pay reparation costs totalling approximately $35,000 to the New Zealand Law Society.

Represented by defence counsel Mathew Phelps, the court heard Porteous had "lost everything" and was now bankrupt and living in a rental property with his son in Raureka where he will spend the next six months.

While this is Porteous' first conviction it is not the first time he had been in court facing dishonesty charges.

In 2004 Porteous was found not guilty of altering and using a document with intent to defraud after a four day trial in the Napier District Court.