Alwyn O'Connor was cross-examined in front of the tribunal in May. Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson
A lawyer with child abuse convictions has been struck off and ordered to pay his client $25,000 - money that had gone missing from the man’s bank account.
Alwyn O’Connor was found guilty last month of using that client’s money as his “own personal credit facility” while they were behind bars after he withdrew over $150,000 from the account over the course of several years.
While he put most of that money back, a further $25,000 was withdrawn from the account using an eftpos card O’Connor was entrusted with while his client was in prison.
He was caught lying to the tribunal last month when he admitted buying shirts for his client’s upcoming court appearance. Those shirts were bought with the card he denied having access to.
Today, the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal struck O’Connor from the roll of barristers and solicitors and ordered he pay back the missing $25,000 as well as $116,000 in legal costs.
They said O’Connor had squandered his “golden opportunity” after being allowed to practice law in 2014, despite a raft of dishonesty convictions to his name and having served time in prison for assaulting a 3-year-old boy.
The tribunal noted O’Connor had told the committee that deemed him fit to practice that he would be “the cleanest most professional lawyer” and that he had rehabilitated despite his background.
But, within 18 months of being granted that opportunity he was offending again by taking money from his client’s bank account without permission.
“Sadly, we do not consider that we can take the risk of further exposing this practitioner to the public,” the tribunal said today.
“We do not consider, at this stage, that he is capable of the level of rehabilitation necessary for him to be trustworthy in the role of a lawyer.”
The tribunal found O’Connor guilty of misconduct for the offending in less than half an hour after a three-day hearing at which he initially failed to turn up.
Ordinarily the tribunal takes weeks to issue a finding about a legal practitioner’s guilt.
However, they said the offending was clear-cut and that O’Connor had been caught lying to them while under cross-examination.
The tribunal said that O’Connor’s previous offending where he’d racked up 16 dishonesty convictions was an aggravating factor.
It also described the offending against his then-partner’s 3-year-old son, for which he was jailed in 2008, as “shocking”.
“The offending also represented a significant breach of trust, which is relevant when one looks at patterns in Mr O’Connor’s conduct,” today’s decision said.
“The misconduct currently under consideration was found to have been against a vulnerable person in respect of whom Mr O’Connor also stood in a position of trust.”
O’Connor did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
Misconduct
The primary case against O’Connor was that he violated a tenuous agreement to borrow at most $25,000 from his client Wayne Coles’ bank account while he was serving several years in prison for possession of methamphetamine and domestic violence.
However, when Coles got out of prison he was shocked to see O’Connor had taken up to $150,000 from the account, depositing money back in each time he came up for parole. There was also $25,000 missing, which had been taken out in a series of withdrawals over several years.
At the hearing another former client was called to give evidence that she’d loaned O’Connor $50,000 on the day she settled her divorce after he’d come to her hat in hand.
When he missed the informal deadline to pay the money back she sent him a strongly worded email demanding it be paid.
Over the next week O’Connor paid in $1000 instalments. The deposits into the woman’s account match the dates and amounts of withdrawals made from Coles’ account.
The standards committee prosecuting O’Connor said he’d simply borrowed money from the woman to pay his debts to Coles.
It said he then used the money from Coles’ account to repay the woman and labelled this process a “money go round”.
The tribunal said today that O’Connor’s offending mirrored his earlier convictions in 2005 where he takes money from people “without thought as to consequence”.
“Mr O’Connor’s taking from his client’s bank account began only 18 months after he had persuaded the Law Society of his rehabilitation and reformed character,” the tribunal’s decision reads.
“The conduct in using client funds was not a spur-of-the-moment or one-off decision. It took place over almost two years. That Mr O’Connor did not think better of it over that time, or even belatedly arrange independent advice is seriously problematic.”
Strike-off
At the end of last month, counsel for the standards committee, Nikki Pender, argued that O’Connor should be struck off because within 18 months of being granted a practicing certificate he was laying the groundwork to take advantage of Coles.
Pender also raised the fact that O’Connor had been allowed to practice in 2014 despite having a raft of dishonesty convictions to his name and having served time in prison for abusing a child.
O’Connor was convicted for assaulting his then-partner’s three-year-old son by rubbing his face into carpet and flushing his head in a toilet. He later also admitted to inserting a pen into his anus and pushing a drawing pin into the head of his penis.
Pender said the Law Society had allowed him to practice despite those convictions but his recent offending proved that he had not been rehabilitated as he’d claimed to the Practice Approval Committee at the time.
“He is not, and never was a fit person to be a member of the legal profession,” Pender told the tribunal last month.
“There is no way back from here.”
Pender was seeking a strike-off for O’Connor, $100,000 in legal costs and $25,000 in compensation for the primary victim.
O’Connor also lied to the committee in 2014 when he told them he’d never been bankrupt - in fact he’d been adjudicated bankrupt twice before he applied to the roll of barristers.
Normally bankruptcy alone would preclude someone from passing the fit and proper person test needed to become a lawyer because of the large amounts of money they handle on behalf of their clients.
In today’s decision the tribunal noted that prior to being granted a practicing certificate O’Connor had received references from a number of senior lawyers.
The decision notes that the Practicing Approval Committee carefully considered his application and granted him a certificate on the basis that he appeared to have been rehabilitated.
A spokesperson for the Law Society said it was pleased the tribunal has struck O’Connor from the roll of barristers and solicitors.
“It is clear that Mr O’Connor did not act in accordance with the assurances he provided the Practice Approval Committee when given this second chance. This is an extremely disappointing outcome,” their statement reads.
“The Law Society expects all lawyers to act in accordance with their professional obligations so the public can have trust and confidence in the legal profession.”
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for the Herald since 2022.
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