On your bike

Foul mouthed Queensland lawyer sent, again, to the Bureau de Spank ... Doesn't care, as he says he's about the retire ... Doug and his Winning ways ... SA Supreme Court says public confidence in the legal profession is of the utmost importance ... Oops, they much have forgotten the hit-and-run case of Eugene McGee 

Doug (F***ing) WinningLovely to see Rockhampton solicitor Doug Winning heading into another bout with the Queensland Bureau de Spank. 

The Legal Services Commissioner has mounted three charges against the wild man of the far north. 

Apparently he's been offensive, discourteous, provocative and/or compromised the integrity and reputation of the lawyer business. 

The blow-up occurred during criminal proceedings at the Rockhampton District Court in May last year  - The Queen v Mr O'D - where Winning launched a spray against consultant crown prosecutor Daniel Boyle. 

On multiple occasions Danny was called "unethical and dishonest". 

Worst, he was accused of presenting to the jury "Brisbornian spin". 

Other choice words were also flung around, including: "f***ing grub ... c*** ... f***ing idiot". 

It is alleged that Winning's statements were "not reasonably justified by the material then available to the solicitor". 

The LSC alleges professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct. 

We've heard all this before from Winning. 

As he told Judge Searles: 

"Your honour, I'm not worried about my learned friend's threats about the LSC ... They've tried it all before and they failed dismally." 

Anyway, Winning says he's about to retire from the law, "so I'm not worried about what this fellow says. He's a lightweight". 

Sir Terence O'Rort reported on Winning's winning ways in July 2007, when Dougie was before the stipes accused of being rude and tipping-off his bikie clients before the coppers swooped.  

According to the particulars of the complaint he'd rung the Rebels motorcycle club: 

"Mate this is fuckin' urgent ... I've got some good drum that the coppers are gonna raid all the Rebels in Rockhampton at five o'clock in the morning ... 

Get rid of bongs particularly, fuckin' cash, because they steal the c*** ... It would be lovely if they came up with fuckin' nothing ... get rid of fuckin' bongs, cash ... Anything ... Everything, ya know." 

There was also a complaint about him saying that the police prosecutor, Acting Snr Constable Gormley, was: 

"Unethical ... Totally unethical." 

A few days later he was laying into Crown prosecutor Paul Bannister: 

"Nothing but a c***, a fuckin' c***." 

He also referred to "fuckin' filthy scumbag coppers who were corrupt". 

Earlier this month Winning hit the local press.  

Helpfully, he compared banning bikie gangs from operating tattoo parlours with trying to trying to prove boy scouts were involved in unlawful activities. 

"If you can't determine the core agenda of a group of boy scouts, how can you propose legislation to proscribe them from being part of a group, unless it can be shown that group is involved in unlawful activity.

"It's the same with bikies ... you can't ban them from doing these activities unless you can prove they are unlawful." 

*   *   *

McGee: setting the standard in SA for "fit and proper"

Michael Alexander John Figwer has been struck off the South Australian jam roll. 

Figwer, already certain that his law career was in the ditch didn't contest the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board's complaint. 

Nonetheless, Chief Justice Chris Kourakis, with justices David Peek and Tim Stanley, wanted to go through the motions of determining whether any skerricks of fitness and properness could be detected. 

There wasn't much to the case - the board invited the court to adopt previous findings made by the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. 

Figwer had three charges brought against him between September 2007 and October 2011. 

The tribunal said he was guilty of 12 counts of unprofessional misconduct and one count of unsatisfactory conduct. 

Figwer had trouble keeping his trust accounts in order, with a bit of tickling the till thrown in for good measure. 

Worse still, he was show in paying counsels' fees and attending to his clients. 

During a hearing before a Federal Magistrate he also made misleading statements. 

And when the Law Society's fearsome professional standards department and the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board started to investigate the allegations he failed to co-operate and tried to mislead the investigation. 

The tribunal found that the 12 counts of professional misconduct was enough to sink him. 

The court said their main concern when dealing with disobliging solicitors is protection of the public. 

"It is of the utmost importance that public confidence in the legal profession be maintained." 

So comforting, yet in South Australia protection of the public and confidence in the legal caper does not run to getting rid of hit-and-run lawyers who kill cyclists on the highway and then dodge the coppers until such point when it's too late for a blood test. 

The Eugene McGee case is notorious and Barry Lane wrote the most recent report on it for Justinian.   

The Adelaide lawyer and former policeman who, after a well lubricated three-and-a-half hour lunch with his brother and mother at the Wheatsheaf Hotel on November 20, 2003, drove into and killed cyclist Ian Humphrey near Kapunda. 

McGee survived largely intact at every stage of the criminal and disciplinary process and is still practising law. 

At his trial in 2005 McGee was acquitted of causing death by dangerous driving. He was convicted of the lesser offence of driving without due care and failure to stop and render assistance following an accident.

He was fined $2,250 and disqualified from driving for 12 months.

Further charges were laid against Eugene and his brother Craig McGee: conspiring to pervert the course of justice and perverting the course of justice.

The allegation was that they had worked together to "frustrate, deflect or prevent" a proper investigation.

After various delays in coming to trial Judge Peter Herriman acquitted both McGees. He swallowed the defence case, saying:

"There was no legal obligation then falling upon Eugene to surrender himself or upon either of them to assist police."

Their actions did not amount to an unlawful purpose. 

The disciplinary process was equally pathetic. 

In April 2011 the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board found that McGee was not guilty of "infamous conduct".

The board's report has remained secret, but bizarrely it accepted that the lawyer was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and that it could only consider his actions in the first seconds of the crash and not take into account the telephone calls to his lawyer and family, and his avoidance of the police.

In December attorney general John Rau said he would not be referring the matter to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. 

How's that for protecting public confidence in the legal profession? 

Brilliant. 

See SA Supreme Court decision in Figwer