STRUCK OFF ROLL

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1931, Page 4

STRUCK OFF ROLL

dishonest solicitor. JUDGE’S STERN COMMENTS. Bertram Theodore Heavener, a Sydney solicitor, was recently held by the Full Court to have been guilty of an act of professional misconduct amounting to dishonesty. The Bench, which consisted of the Chief Justice (Sir Philip Street), Mr. Justice Harvey, and Mrs. Justice Stephen, directed that Heavener’s name should be removed from the roll of solicitors and that he pay the costs of the inquiry. The charge brought against Heavener by the Incorporated Law Institute was that on February 1, 1926, he received £SOO on account of a client named Murphy, and had fraudulently omitted to pay the money to Murphy.’ The Chief Justice said that the explanation given by Heavener that he retained the money with the authority of Murphy as part payment for costs due to him was not one that could be accepted by the Court. The circumstances concocted as a possible way out of the situation in which he now found himself, and was inconsistent with the statement made in his public examination in bankruptcy. There was no room on the roll of solicitors of the Supreme Court, said Sir Philip Street, for a person who had been proved guilty, of dishonesty in the handling of a client’s money, and no reason had been shown on Heavener’s behalf led to the conclusion that it was merely, why he should be treated differently from any other solicitor found guilty of dishonest practices.