GAOL FOR FIVE YEARS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 211, 7 September 1943, Page 3

GAOL FOR FIVE YEARS

SOLICITOR WHO STOLE CLIENTS’ FUNDS (P.A.) Auckland, Sept. 2. Sentence of five years’ imrisonment was imposed by Mr Justice Fair today on Huon Lucien Martyn Buisson, aged 39, solicitor, of Auckland, for I..efts of sums totalling £14,277 belonging to clients. Among the circumstances connected with the case, said Buisson’s counsel, Mr. W. Meek, there was one which would afford general satisfaction, 1 namely, that not one of the clients involved had lost a penny as a result of the misappropriations. The whole burden had fallen on the Solicitors’ Fidelity Guarantee 7’iust Fund. Counsel said that in 1935, the year after Buisson comenced practice on I his own account, he foolishly advanced £7OO to a friend, which was not returned. He further gave a guarantee to moneylenders lor another client who had a "madcap ' patent scheme.” From 1937 onwards ■ Buisson wc.r greatly worried and hau said, in a written statement, that he did not know what he was doing during those years. Unfortunately there was a lack of supervision of his: accounts, and he drifted on until the final blow came, continuing to make stupid leans to "men of straw.” He submitted that in cases of similar nature prisoners, after finishing their sentences, were given an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves, and appealed to the Court not to impose a sentence which would destroy hope ot Buisson’s becoming a worthy and useful member of the community, but rather one that during the time of sentence would enable him to live in a flood-tide of hope and not drown in the ebb-tide of despair. Mr. V. R. M. Meredith, for the Crown, said Buisson was a member ot a profession, the practice of which was io a great extent based on the confidence and trust reposed in the practitioner by clients for whom he undertook professio .i work. From the outset of con .ncing practice he consistently betrayed that trust. He obtained possession of the trust receipt book of a deceased practitioner. By issuing official receipts in this for moneys received he kept a record of them out of his own trust receipt book and so out of the purview of his auditor. In a period of years his thefts amounted to over £14,000. The clients who trusted him would not lose by his dishonesty. The money would be repaid to them by other members of the legal profession from their Solicitors’ Fidelity Guarantee Fund. It might well be that Buisson had less scruples in robbing his clients because of the knowledge that they would not be the losers of one penny, but the actual losers would be other members of the profession which he disgraced. Mr. Justice Fair said it was painful to see a man only 39 and in good health physically and mentally appear for sentence on charges so grave. Qualified by ability and practice, he had abused a position of trust in the legal profession from the very commencement of his practice by stealing money entrusted by clients. He continued the thefts over the whole of the last 10 years. It was true that his clients presumably would not suffer any .substantial loss, but his fellow’ practitioners who guaranteed his honesty would suffer, and it was they he had robbed. Whatever difficulty the prisoner may have encountered for a period, the fact remained that for 10 years he had been living in comparative luxury by stealing thousands from many clients who trusted him. 7he duty of the Court in the circumstances was clearly to impose a sentence which would warn others. The least sentence the Court could impose was five years.