Melbourne barristers off the hook

It's 1981 and the NSW bar's ethics committee has dismissed suggestions from Athol Moffitt that two Melbourne barristers weren't plying their trade in accordance with the high standards of the Sydney bar ... Suggestions that the trial was protracted by irrelevancies and the use of extreme language - thrown out by the ethics inspectors ... Crushing blow for Court of Criminal Appeal ... From Justinian's Déjà Vu department 

Robert Richter: no irrelevancies

Two Melbourne barristers, Robert Richter and R. van de Weil, who in early 1979 appeared in the NSW District Court for two accused in a drug case, have been cleared by the ethics committee of the NSW Bar Association.

The investigation by the committee followed remarks by Moffitt P when delivering the judgment of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in Reg v Niblett and Reg v Lockman.

The remarks from the bench raised a number of issues concerning defence counsel Richter and van de Weil, who are both admitted at the Sydney bar, including protracting the trial by irrelevancies, making serious allegations against the police without any evidentiary support or corroboration from the statements of the accused, and pursuing these allegations with the use of extreme language.

It was also suggested that the accused had received a degree of lawyer coaching or instruction.

The ethics committee studied transcripts, reports of the trial judge (Ward DCJ), obtained the comments on the matters raised by the Court of Criminal Appeal from the two counsel, and questioned the instructing solicitor.

In a recent letter to the Registrar of the Court of Criminal Appeal, the Registrar of the NSW Bar Association, Captain W. F. Cook, wrote:

"The association cannot find that the trial was protracted by irrelevancies or that the allegations raised were couched in extravagant terms or were made irresponsibly by either of the unsworn statements. Nor in the association's view does the evidence support a finding that counsel sought to obtain a restrospective carte blanche justification from the unsworn statements for their cross-examination of the Crown witnesses ... 

"Accordingly, the association has decided to take no further action in relation to the matters raised by the Court of Criminal Appeal."