Serial conman Brian Hunter stole $333k in legal aid from Chris Tennet’s legal firm

Chris Tennet hired serial conman Brian Hunter (insert) to work at his law firm. Tennet is now before the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal to explain what, if any, supervision he had over Hunter, knowing full well his background. Photo / NZME

• Brian Hunter defrauded more than $330,000 from the Ministry of Justice while working at Justice Chambers.
• Chris Tennet hired Hunter despite his extensive criminal history.
• Now a tribunal is investigating Tennet for allegedly failing to adequately supervise Hunter, who died in 2023.

There wouldn’t have been many people who would have given Brian Hunter a chance after learning he had more than 180 convictions to his name, including having impersonated several lawyers and even a pilot.

But lawyer Chris Tennet did, hiring the serial fraudster to work at his Wellington law firm, Justice Chambers, in 2016 to do administration, legal aid applications and pastoral care for clients who were in prison.

Hunter repaid him for the opportunity by defrauding more than $330,000 in legal aid payments from the Ministry of Justice in Tennet’s firm’s name.

And then, before he could be brought to task for it, Hunter died.

“I was personally convinced enough that his previous frauds were explicable and he had changed his life,” Tennet told the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal this week where he was tasked with explaining what oversight and risk management procedures he had over his employee.

“While I could never ignore that [the convictions], he was trustworthy enough to be in the office.

“I genuinely thought he’d changed”

Tennet discovered the fraud while he was being hauled over the coals at the same tribunal in 2022 where he was accused of charging a client $3000 for a report that should have been free. He was handed a year-long suspension, which was cut to nine months under appeal.

During the course of that hearing Tennet discovered what a report writer would ordinarily charge for a report, and found it at odds with how much his firm had been charging. He then went back to his office and looked at his accounts.

Brian Hunter died in 2023. Photo / Duncan Brown

Invoices for reports that weren’t produced

At Tennet’s firm it was Hunter who was tasked with applying for legal aid, as well as paying various services to provide psychologist and cultural reports for the firm’s clients that were presented in court.

Legal aid is Government funding that pays for a lawyer for people who can’t afford one, and helps pay for psychological or cultural reports that are filed with the courts. Legal aid is paid to lawyers and firms rather than the client directly and 90% of Tennet’s firm’s income came from this kind of funding.

From the very year Hunter started with the firm in 2016 he began skimming money from invoices and depositing it into his own bank account.

On behalf of Tennet’s clients Hunter applied for legal aid funding for reports from three providers, whose names are suppressed, and submitted false quotes and invoices to legal aid services.

Hunter arranged for Tennet to pay the false invoices, which were paid into Hunter’s personal bank accounts rather than the organisations who had done the reports.

Hunter would then pay the report writers their original quoted sum and keep the difference for himself.

In some instances, Hunter would submit invoices for reports that were never produced.

Christopher Tennet leaving his tribunal hearing in 2022. Photo / Hazel Osborne

Between 2016 and 2022 Tennet’s practice submitted 124 invoices to legal aid. Of those, just six were paid into the account of the actual provider.

Tennet paid a total of $456,000 into Hunter’s accounts and of that $122,000 was paid to providers of that. Hunter skimmed $333,000 for himself.

As a result, the fraud meant that many of his clients owed money to legal aid.

When Tennet discovered, at his own disciplinary hearing, what a report actually cost he went and did some digging into his records and discovered what Hunter had been doing.

He locked Hunter out of the office and informed the police and the New Zealand Law Society what he’d found.

‘Asleep at the wheel’

Hunter died in 2023 before he could be taken to task for the alleged fraud, but a Standards Committee of the New Zealand Law Society continued to investigate Tennet for hiring Hunter, and then failing to adequately supervise him.

Counsel for that committee, Sam McMullan, told the tribunal earlier this week that Tennet had effectively been “asleep at the wheel” when it came to supervising Hunter, who wasn’t actually being paid to work at the firm.

“This is not a case where Mr Hunter’s fraud could not be reasonably foreseen,” McMullan said.

“This is a case where Mr Tennet knew that Hunter was at risk of committing more fraud.”

McMullan said that to his credit, Tennet gave Hunter a chance, but there was a long list of preventive measures he could have put in place to mitigate the risk of a serial fraudster having unfettered access to clients, finances and the firm’s computer system.

“Mr Tennet knew of Mr Hunter’s risk, and he knew the legal aid model was a high trust one,” he said.

By contrast, Tennet told the tribunal that as far as he was aware in the day-to-day running of the firm, everything was above board.

Conman Brian Hunter racked up over 180 convictions in his time. Photo / File

“If I saw a quote, that’s what I applied for and that’s what I paid for,” he said.

“I did not see any scope for fraud nor did I have any reason to suspect it.”

Tennet said there was never any discrepancy in the firm’s accounts, and the invoices he received always matched the estimates.

“He had worked out how to forge documents, and had set himself as the point of contact with those particular providers,” Tennet said.

“What I didn’t know is he was defrauding legal aid across three providers.”

‘I always thought I knew what he was doing’

Hunter is no stranger to fraud, with perhaps his most-notable offence was pretending to have a pilot’s licence and posing as a flying instructor in 2012.

Several years later he went on to impersonate two lawyers at the same time and defraud two moving companies out of thousands of dollars.

By 2014 Hunter had amassed 184 convictions, 160 of which were dishonesty or fraud offending, and he’d been jailed five times in the 90s.

The tribunal questioned what procedures Tennet put in place to monitor a serial fraudster who had access to his computer systems, clients and invoices and was working for free.

Tennet said he saw nothing untoward while Hunter was working for him and said “I always thought I knew what he was doing.”

Tennet’s lawyer, Warren Pyke, said that perhaps his client should have anticipated that Hunter would game the system, but had “let his guard down”.

“He had made a big mistake here in terms of getting him involved,” Pyke said.

However, Pyke said that his client had been proactive about informing the police and Law Society as soon as he discovered the offending.

“Had it not been for Tenet reporting it, it may never have come to light.”

The tribunal will issue its finding on liability in writing at a later date.

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 NZME since 2022.