Three people have made complaints to the Law Society about O'Connor's conduct. Photo / 123rf
Three people have made complaints about the conduct of lawyer Alwyn O’Connor, including one who says he used money from his account while he was behind bars and another who says his alleged conduct is unbecoming of a member of the legal profession.
The first and most serious complaint about O’Connor, who has previously gone by several different names, relates to allegations that $150,000 worth of withdrawals were made over the course of several years from one of his client’s bank accounts, which he was entrusted with while he was in prison.
The second relates to a redundancy a former client alleges he mishandled while a third comes from a person who claims O’Connor harassed him for years and his conduct is unbecoming of a member of the legal profession.
The Law Society won’t comment on ongoing investigations and doesn’t provide a timeline nor updates to any party involved in their complaints process.
O’Connor, who has an assault conviction, said he couldn’t talk about the complaints before the Law Society but through his lawyer denied any fraudulent activity. He added that his conviction, which is not linked to any of the current complaints, was from 18 years ago and he maintained his innocence.
“It was that matter that was the catalyst for me to study law and help people in similar situations,” he said in a statement.
“Often it is one’s backstory that makes someone’s journey interesting. I am proud of who I am today.”
O’Connor graduated to the bar in 2014 and was required to list any previous names as part of his registration to the Law Society.
He listed himself under Alwyn O’Connor, Alwyn Kingsbeer, and Alwyn Billington-Kingsbeer as well as going under the first name Al. His birth certificate states that he was christened Alwyn Billington, with Kingsbeer being his mother’s maiden name. When he married in 2008 he took his wife’s name - O’Connor.
In 2007 he was using the surname Kingsbeer when he was found guilty of assaulting his then-girlfriend’s young son by flushing his head in the toilet and rubbing his face into carpet. He was also found guilty of two more serious charges of indecent assault. However, after spending more than a year in jail he successfully appealed against the indecent assault charges and those convictions were overturned.
Neither the Law Society nor O’Connor responded to questions about whether O’Connor disclosed his conviction before being admitted to the bar.
The Complaints
The first complainant, Wayne Coles, claims O’Connor transferred around $150,000 from his account while he was behind bars. He also claims nearly $20,000 in cash withdrawals were made from an Eftpos card. He claims he gave the pin number to O’Connor when he went to prison.
While in prison, and in the throes of meth withdrawal, he vaguely recalls O’Connor asking him to borrow $10,000. But a hand-written note contained in O’Connor’s file notes which were seen by police, and apparently signed by Coles, states he could borrow $25,000 from the account. Coles said he recalls telling O’Connor that they could sort out the repayments later on.
Regardless of the amount that each man says was agreed to be loaned, it falls far short of the more than $150,000 O’Connor allegedly cycled through the account in the form of withdrawals and deposits over the course of several years. And it doesn’t account for the nearly $20,000 missing entirely in the form of cash withdrawals.
“The more I think about it the angrier I get,” Coles told NZME.
“I’m not expecting any of the money back realistically and the Law Society told me that’s an unlikely result.”
Coles also went to the police about his money.
Several days before he was due to be released from prison in May of 2018 a deposit totalling $70,000 appeared in Coles’ account from O’Connor, but this hardly raised an eyebrow with a forensic accountant for the police who calculated that Coles was missing a grand total of about $11.75 after O’Connor had put most of the funds back.
“I have analysed the accounts and quantified the amount paid to Mr O’Connor as being $153,961.75,” the accountant said in an email to Coles’ new lawyer who is helping him with his complaint to the Law Society.
“In total, Mr Coles was repaid $153,950 from Mr O’Connor by 27 April 2018. While the amount taken far exceeds the documented loan, it appears the loss suffered by Mr Coles is $11.75. Given the funds taken have effectively been repaid, there is no theft.”
Police couldn’t prove who made the ATM withdrawals and appear to have assumed that Coles was out of prison at the time when in reality he was locked up.
Coles says this fact would have been simple for the police to check, and now by their own admission, it’s too late to go back and check the CCTV cameras on the ATM machines where the cash was taken from.
From there the police referred the case back to the New Zealand Law Society where it still remains under investigation.
O’Connor told NZME he would like to comment but said the Law Society investigation was a private and confidential matter.
He said he would seek advice from the Law Society before telling NZME he was seeking an injunction from the High Court to stop the publication of this story.
No injunction was filed and in a written statement from his own legal counsel O’Connor said that he denied any suggestion that his activities were in any way fraudulent.
He said that Coles agreed to loan him money in 2016 - however, the loan agreement he refers to is dated January 2017.
“I repaid the loan some years ago and Mr Coles has never taken up this issue with me personally.”
“I’m saddened that Mr Coles appears to be fixated on this after our friendship dissolved.
“I did my best to help him when he had no one else, and further he was, at the time, very happy to be able to help me.”
Another of the complainants is Chris Allerton who did some informal building work for O’Connor. He says it’s taken years to progress a complaint to the Law Society. He is frustrated at the time it’s taken and says it’s had a huge mental toll on him.
“The Law Society don’t tell you anything, they don’t provide an update on where anything is at…nothing. Just a void.”
His complaint relates to O’Connor’s handling of his severance from his previous workplace.
Allerton claims O’Connor didn’t file documents on time, filed the wrong documents and essentially tried to make “a mountain out of a molehill” by turning what he believes should have been a straightforward payout into a personal grievance.
“He didn’t want me to sign severance and wanted me to pursue a personal grievance,” Allerton claims.
Allerton also alleges the handling of the case resulted in him losing about $6000 in severance.
A third man, who did not want to be named, has made a complaint about what he describes as allegedly racist behaviour. He claims O’Connor has harassed him for years.
The basis for his complaint was that O’Connor’s behaviour was unbecoming of a member of the law profession.
NZME understands that one of the complainant’s hearings will be going ahead sometime next year. It’s unclear what stage the other two complaints are at.
Alan Thorp says at the moment, councils are too scared the move isn’t legal.