Conman Brian Hunter exiting court with one of his former lawyers who has successfully sued him for defamation. Photo / File
Conman Brian Hunter exiting court with one of his former lawyers who has successfully sued him for defamation. Photo / File
A Napier lawyer, who sued a former client and serial conman for defamation, doubts he will ever see any of the money ordered by a court.
But Phillip Ross says he never expected any redress — the point was to put an end to the claims against him and fellowlawyer and plaintiff Cliff Church by Brian Hunter, who at the age of 59 has almost 200 convictions for mainly dishonesty offences.
In addition to awarding a total of $84,000 to the two practitioners, Judge Brooke Gibson banned Hunter from publishing any further defamatory allegations against the men, an order that could lead to criminal prosecution if breached.
The judge's decision, based on a hearing last September, was delivered this week and related to claims made on a website run by Hunter, attacking two of the lawyers who have acted for him over four decades of entanglement with the courts.
Hunter has over the years been jailed for offences which involved fake identities such as a lawyer, a private investigator and a pilot.
He also once successfully sued a courier firm in a bogus claim before a Disputes Tribunal case, only for the claim to be quashed with himself prosecuted in court when the ruse was uncovered.
Ross was awarded $50,000 and Church $34,000, but Ross said the issue was "never about whether we would recover the court-ordered damages, but vindication and to put a stop to egregious assault on our reputations."
