No tax returns for 11 years sees shyster struck off the jam roll … Driving and practising law without licenses … Which is worse? … Underworld connections
Morris George Henderson, known as George and other less attractive names, Melbourne solicitor to gangland identities and scam artists has finally been struck from the jam roll.
The sin that sank him was his failure to file a tax return for a miserable 11 years. Compared to Sydney barristers who really knew how not to file tax returns, Henderson’s offence was meagre by comparison.
Justice Michael McDonald’s strike-off judgment happily took us down memory lane, recalling celebrities like Gus Cummins QC, AJC, who didn’t bother lodging tax returns for an award-winning 38 years, and Robert Somosi for 17 years.
McDonald rolled out the traditional rebuke for such forgetfulness.
“Defrauding the revenue … lack of integrity … contumelious disregard … not fit and proper ….”
Spiggsy Spigelman CJ set a high standard for the language to be bestowed on tax avoiding lawyers. In the Cummins case he said in relation to the failure to lodge returns for 38 years that this was in “complete defiance” of the barrister’s civic responsibilities.
“For almost four decades, Mr Cummins took advantage of the full range of public services made available by taxation, not least in the provision of the court system in which he earned his income. He left the burden of all of this to his fellow citizens. Throughout the four decades he engaged in the rank hypocrisy of advocating that other people should perform their legal obligations, while systematically refusing to perform his own.”
Not only did Hendo fail to file his returns, he failed to comply with orders of the Magistrates’ Court that he lodge the returns, he failed to pay a fine of $30,000, he failed to notify the Legal Services Board that he had a conviction for tax offences and, to top it off, he ignored the LSC’s request for a written explanation.
According to the VLSC, when eventually he lodged his returns, he was assessed as owing income tax, yet by December 2013 he had not paid either the tax owing or the $30,000 fine.
It was all too much.
Invariably, judges and people sitting on tribunals are at their high-flown, censorious best when handing down punishments in the most bleeding obvious high-end cases of professional misconduct, yet tend to wimp it in cases of overcharging, gross negligence, delay and conflicts.
Here’s Spiggsy, again, in Cummins, cited with approval by McDonald:
“The legal profession has long required the highest standards of integrity.
There are four interrelated interests involved. Clients must feel secure in confiding their secrets and entrusting their most personal affairs to lawyers. Fellow practitioners must be able to depend implicitly on the word and the behaviour of their colleagues. The judiciary must have confidence in those who appear before the courts. The public must have confidence in the legal profession by reason of the central role the profession plays in the administration of justice. Many aspects of the administration of justice depend on the trust by the judiciary and/or the public in the performance of professional obligations by professional people.”
Who would have guessed it?
In George Henderson’s case there was a glowing history of strife. If it was not practising without a ticket, it was driving without a licence.
In 1999 he was found guilty of professional misconduct after unlawfully appearing as counsel in a County Court criminal trial, resulting in the trial being aborted after three-and-a-half months.
He could not apply for a ticket until August 2002, ordered to pay costs of $6,000 and convicted of a criminal offence.
In December 2002, the Legal Profession Tribunal lifted, with conditions, the prohibition on his ticket, notwithstanding his convictions for unlicensed trafficking in legal work, driving while disqualified and while drunk.
In 2012 The Hun had a story about Ms Giulia Mandarino-Smith who, allegedly, on Hendo’s advice signed over large amounts of money to her con-artist boyfriend, Leonard Anderson.
Henderson had also been a friend and former lawyer to Melbourne gangster matriarch and convicted murderer Judy Moran.
Ms Mandarino-Smith said that Henderson advised her to hand over almost $500,000 in two separate loans to Anderson, all the while knowing that Mr Anderson was duping her.
It is also claimed that Anderson conned Ms Mandarino-Smith over two mortgages from the Commonwealth Bank on a property in St Kilda.
The story continued:
“Mr Henderson is no stranger to controversy in legal circles.
In 2001 he was convicted for practising law without a certificate – a blunder which aborted a major drug trial.
Mr Henderson had purported to be a lawfully qualified barrister while defending a man facing drug importation charges in a County Court trial from March until June 1999.
But after 55 days of court sitting time the trial was aborted when it was realised Mr Henderson did not hold a practising certificate. The mistrial is believed to have cost about $500,000.
The blunder occurred because Mr Henderson had moved to Queensland in the 1980s and was not aware that subsequent changes in the law required him to have a practising certificate in Victoria.
He was convicted and fined $5,000.
At that hearing he also pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified, unlicensed driving and drink driving.
Ms Mandarino Smith is claiming $467,500 against Mr Anderson and $250,000 against Mr Henderson, according to an amended writ filed at the Supreme Court of Victoria on February 6, 2012.”
In striking him off the jam roll McDonald found that Henderson was not fit and proper and was “likely to remain so for the indefinite future”. It’s unfortunate that it took so long to get rid of him.
Further background from the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner