Wokka bows out after a quarter-century as chief stoker in the Federal Court boiler-room … Sex-obsessed barrister’s ticket gets confiscated … The bar n’ grill sits on his hands for an extended period … Bottom fondling at the LCA … Theodora reports
After 24 years it’s sayonara Wokka. It’s been fun – with finely etched memories of the dismantlement of the Family Court administration, reorganising the backend of the FCA, the FamCA and the FCCA, the enterprise agreement negotiations for staff that dragged on and on, and generally keeping the exquisite finery of the federal judicial system fully laundered and pressed.
Before the Federal Court he was chief executive and principal registrar of the NSW Supremes. His life as a senior court bureaucrat stretches back to the days of Smiler Gleeson and Michael Black.
Wokka’s corporate plan for 2018-2019 is a thing of beauty. Here’s a Q&A session he did in 2016 about his career as a court administrator.
Just as he leaves, the Federal Court enters a new era with its first-ever jury trial – a criminal cartel case brought by the CDPP and the consumer watch-poodle – Commonwealth DPP v Country Care Group Pty Ltd & Ors. See Com Courts file details.
Who said juries shouldn’t be available for Federal Court defamation trials?
Strange doings with the NSW bar n’ grill’s expulsion of perpetual show-pony, Charles Waterstreet.
The bar cancelled his ticket on June 27 with a formal note on its website that doesn’t mention that date:
“On 9 May 2019 the bar council resolved to suspend the Australian practising certificate issued to Charles Christian Waterstreet. The suspension took effect from midnight on 14 June 2019.”
The bar tells Justinian, “I’m afraid we’re not in a position to comment any further”.
Over on the website of the Legal Services Commissioner, the register of disciplinary action reports the show cause matter was “bankruptcy – related event – section 89 LPUL“.
Waterstreet’s response to the show cause event did not get him over the “fit and proper” hurdle.
It was his taxation-inspired bankruptcy that was the coup de grace, rather than the history of inappropriate sexual innuendo and sleazing, upon which he had worked so hard to achieve celebrity disgrace.
The register also shows that in May this year he was done for unsatisfactory professional conduct and reprimanded, in that he:
“Improperly, irrelevantly and offensively referred to the nationalities of two witnesses.
Made a number of factual assertions for which there were no proper basis in the evidence at trial.”
On July 5, Waterstreet discontinued proceedings in the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the bar’s suspension.
The bankruptcy followed District Court orders by Judge Judith Gibson that Waterstreet pay the tax man more than $420,000. This was an automatic show cause event.
The judge noted that he had not only failed to lodge his income tax returns, but also to make GST and PAYG payments “over what appears to have been an extended period of time”.
Ten minutes after the tax trial was set to begin on March 7, 2018, counsel for the deputy commissioner received a frantic email from the defendant saying he can’t find anyone to represent him and that he had the matter down in his diary for the wrong day, “as usual the shoemakers children are worst shod”.
“No disrespect. Yours sincerely, Charles Waterstreet. Sent from my iPhone.”
It wasn’t only the ATO making allegations against the now cancelled-barrister. Various women were on the public record with stories of “inappropriate behaviours”.
Tina Huang, while being interviewed by the barrister for a job, alleges she was shown a video of a male organ being masturbated. Contrary to his denials, New Matilda dug up the hooker who claimed she co-starred with Waterstreet’s penis in the video.
Genevieve Wilks, a paralegal in Waterstreet’s chambers was given a book by Waterstreet as a present for her “first day at work”. It featured a nude photo of the celebrity barrister, and NewMatilda claims he also showed her a pencil drawing of his “beautiful penis”.
Other applicants were shown sex toys and his staff subjected to sleazy comments and innuendo.
The University of Sydney student careers-hub website said it would not publish any more of Waterstreet’s advertisements for interns and paralegals.
The Rogerson-McNamara murder trial jury was discharged because Waterstreet posted potentially prejudicial material on Instagram.
He conspicuously stepped out to speak at seminars and promote jewellery decked out in his wig and gown.
And we’ mustn’t forget Waterstreet’s famous property stoush with actress Kate Fitzpatrick, as outlined by Justinian in As the actress said to the barrister.
We could go on, but the point is that the worthies at the bar council didn’t put this desperate, sad fellow off the tracks for any of his numerous ruptures of the fit and proper requirement.
It was his long awaited bankruptcy before the council deemed that enough is enough.
Good riddance to a narcissistic old reprobate, and congratulations to the self-licking ice-cream cone (aka the NSW Bar Association). https://t.co/Utb7IW2kjC
— 💧liblawlib🦉 (@gld301218) July 18, 2019
Also in the Departure Lounge is Konrad de Kerloy, a HSF partner in Perth. In June, following an indeterminate investigation into an allegation of inappropriately touching a female director of the law council, he resigned as president-elect of the LCA and from its executive committee.
De Kerloy is a past president of the WA solicitors’ society.
Here is the sequence of events and from this we may be able to join the dots.
On March 22, there was a law council directors’ dinner at the NSW parliament in Macquarie Street. Many of the state and territory leaders of the law societies and the bars were there. So too NSW chief justice, Tom Bathurst
On March 29, Guardian Australia reported that Kerloy has stepped aside as president-elect while an independent investigation took place.
Three months later, on June 27, LCA prez Arthur Moses SC announced that the independent investigation had been unable to determine the allegation and no adverse finding had been made against the PE.
Subsequently, the parties participated in a mediation before former president of the Human Rights Commission, Catherine Branson. During this time Kerloy had stood aside but on May 25 he stopped standing aside and turned up at a LCA board meeting.
Into the breach as president-in-waiting comes Pauline Wright, head of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties and in 2017 president of the Law Society of NSW.
How did all of this happen? Was it anything to do with this Tweet the day after the March 23 dinner in Sydney from Elizabeth Espinosa, the current NSW law society president?
Am still gobsmacked, but #metoo just last night at a work function – a professional colleague put his hand on my arse. I physically removed his hand and said ‘Don’t put your hand there.’
— Elizabeth Espinosa (@Elizabe35713553) March 23, 2019
Elizabeth is still a director of the LCA.