Massive amounts of character evidence failed to help Howard Hilton regain admission … Previous corrupt conduct would blight the legal profession’s glow of honesty … Readmission refused 30 years after being struck-off … Insufficient evidence as to a change in character … Andrew Bell reports 

NOTORIOUSLY disgraced solicitor Howard Hilton has lost his Supreme Court appeal against a refusal by the admission board to give him a ticket.  

He was convicted in November 1986 of conspiring to bribe the Minister for Corrective Services, Rex (Buckets) Jackson, for early release of his incarcerated clients.  

Hilton was sentenced to imprisonment for nine years with a six-year non-parole period and struck-off the jam roll. The Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the non-parole period to four-and-a-half years.

Despite amassing 35 affidavits testifying to his good fame and character, he failed to discharge the onus to demonstrate that he was a fit and proper person for re-admission to the guild. 

While many of Hilton’s witnesses could attest to the appearance of honesty, Justice Robert Beech-Jones wrote that the “very nature of the serious transgressions committed by legal practitioners is that they are committed by people who are seen to be honest”.

The affidavits came from solicitors, barristers, including silks, other professionals, finance people and social acquaintances. They referenced both his pre and post-conviction professional character.  

After his release from prison Hilton worked as an insurance salesman and later started a small financial brokerage business, drawing on his conveyancing experience. He also got permission from the ADT to work as a lay associate at a law firm called “& Legal”. 

None of the enthusiastic endorsements could sufficiently ameliorate the risk that Hilton would compromise ethics in favour of his client’s interests. Affidavits detailing historical conduct were not given much weight, as “each of their assessments of Mr. Hilton’s character in the 1980s proved to be completely mistaken”. 

While these testimonials were tendered in the proceedings, they would not necessarily be available to those who would be required to trust Hilton in practice. 

The sentencing judge Ken Carruthers found that Hilton committed the offence because he was motivated to expand his criminal practice. He consistently denied this, but could not cogently explain an alternative motive – making it difficult to dispel the risk of re-offending. 

His offence was in the “worst category” justifying disbarment, since it involved corruption over a sustained period at the highest level of public office, committed as a solicitor, directed towards perverting the course of justice. 

The court was obliged to consider the standard factors of fitness and propriety, in addition to the circumstances of removal from the roll, the applicant’s view of those circumstances and decision, events which re-establish good fame and character, law-related experience since removal and any other relevant matters.  

The conspiracy took place over a period of a month, where Hilton knew that the conduct was both dishonest and corrupt. Beech-Jones found:  

“Mr. Hilton’s crime was not an impulsive one. He surreptitiously and deliberately pursued a corrupt scheme over a sustained period in circumstances when at all times he knew what he was doing was corrupt.”

Beech-Jones held that the refusal of the applicant’s readmission was protective, and not punitive, based on his fitness at the time of the hearing. 

While the long passage of time was in Hilton’s favour, it was not sufficient positive evidence of a change in his character. 

Ultimately, it was a question of balance. A large number of witnesses provided limited insight into how a re-admitted Hilton would operate, and a corruption charge so centrally relevant to the legal profession cast a very long shadow. 

Indeed, HH wrote that “none of the authorities cited by either party involved an offence so incompatible with the role of a solicitor as that committed by Mr. Hilton”. 

David (Bubba) Bennett appeared for Hilton and Robert Newlinds for the Law Society.