Hart breaker

Barrister with innovative drink-driving practice struck from the jam roll after impressive list of priors ... Lapses going back to 2006 finally catch-up with forum shopper

Serial offender John Peter Hart finally has been struck off the jam roll.

Hart had been plying his trade at the bar 'n' grill since 1986 - although not continuously.

He developed a habit of falsifying his clients' addresses and occupations and a taste for trading without a ticket.

In July 2008 he told his client, Mr Wheaton, who lived in Bondi and worked at North Ryde, that he ought to tell the court he lived and worked at Oakdale so that his drink driving matter could be transferred from the Downing Centre to Camden Local Court.

Hart told both the Downing Centre Local Court and the Camden Local Court that his client resided in Oakdale and suggested to Wheaton that he obtain references to that effect.

In March 2009 he was at it again, appearing for Ms Smith, also on drink driving charges.

This time he told Sutherland Local Court that his client was a special needs teacher who had been posted to Wagga Wagga.

She was nothing of the sort, but Hart succeeded in having the matter adjourned to Wagga and he told his client to obtain false references about her employment there.

On the morning the matter was to be heard the barrister told his client not to take her flight to Wagga because, contrary to his expectation, magistrate Peter Dare wouldn't be hearing the case.

He called the police prosecutor at Wagga and told him that Ms Smith was on the Gold Coast and couldn't make it to court.

He then dictated a letter addressed to the presiding magistrate at Wagga:

"Miss Smith contacted me yesterday to inform me that she was on the Sunshine Coast visiting her family for Easter and due to inclement weather is unable to be driven to Wagga Wagga today also."

None of this was true.

A month later Hart was back before Sutherland Local Court defending another client, Mr Bleckman, on drink driving charges.

He told the court that Bleckman, who lived in Revesby and walked to work, had moved in with his parents in Engadine and spent four hours commuting every day.

These inexactitudes earned him the cancellation of his ticket, which he proceeded to ignore on October 21, 2009 when he held himself out as a barrister to the registrar of the Local Court at Balmain.

Macfarlan JA and Handley AJA agreed with Ruth McColl's finding of professional misconduct and an order prising the wretch from the roll.

It wasn't the first time Hart had lapsed.

In 2006 the ADT found him guilty of professional misconduct for not disclosing his failure to file tax returns or business activity statements in 2002 or 2003.  

He was also found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct at the same time for failing to cooperate with the bar council's investigation.

In 2009 he was found guilty of professional misconduct again, for hanging onto a client's $10,000 deposit.

The Court of Appeal heard the latest case in Hart's absence.

At the eleventh hour, just before the hearing in March, he faxed the bar's solicitors to say he would be in Queensland receiving dental treatment.

Tom Westbrook reporting