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A graduate lawyer’s admission into the profession was stalled when she was accused of having a relationship with a police officer so she could allegedly feed information to her former law firm.
The Supreme Court of Queensland tossed out three accusations against a law graduate, including her allegedly using her relationship with a police officer to receive information about a case that she could then pass on to her employer at a family law firm.
Justice Tom Sullivan said there was “no evidence” this occurred and passed his reasons onto the registrar of the Court of Appeal.
The objector, who was the subject of an investigation by the same police officer, made the accusation as part of his objection to the law graduate’s admission into the profession. Given the seriousness of the unfounded allegations, her name has been anonymised.
The law graduate began working as a legal secretary at the family law firm in July 2022 until her termination for unrelated reasons in December of that year. In November, the objector’s former partner reached out to the firm via a Google search for advice.
While the graduate did cause certain emails to be sent on the file of the former partner, Justice Sullivan said there was no evidence that suggested her role in this “was other than administrative in nature”.
The objector’s second dismissed complaint was he had been the victim of a “false allegation of stalking” of the graduate and officer.
The Supreme Court heard the objector located the graduate via the police officer’s Facebook, found she worked at the law firm from her LinkedIn, and looked for the emails she had sent to his solicitors.
For three or four months, the objector subscribed to the Queensland Law Reporter publication “solely for the purpose of identifying when [the graduate] applied for admission as a solicitor” so he could object.
While there were different accounts of the phone call that occurred shortly afterwards between the objector and the officer, Justice Sullivan was satisfied “on the balance of probabilities” that the objector had told the officer he was planning to make the objection.
Around this time, the police officer also claimed he was questioned on his relationship status in the Magistrates Court matter. He also gave evidence he was “surprised” to have this come up.
The objector was arrested and charged with two separate offences of stalking, one relating to his former partner and the other to the alleged stalking of the law graduate and the police officer.
Justice Sullivan said there was no finding to be made on the stalking allegations, but he was satisfied there was a “reasonable basis” for the officer to have complained about this to the Queensland Police Service.
He was also satisfied the graduate was not involved in the making of the complaint and that it was done without her consent or authority.
“In conclusion, given that I have found [the graduate] was not the person who made the complaint and had not authorised or consented to the complaint being made, I find the second ground of objection has not been made out on the evidence,” Justice Sullivan said.
The third objection was an allegation the law graduate and police officer “colluded” to have the objector remanded into custody on the stalking charges to prevent him from objecting to her admission.
Justice Sullivan said there was “no direct evidence or inference available on the balance of probabilities” to support a finding that the officer made the complaint to the Queensland Police Service for the purpose of restraining the objector from making the complaints.
His finding hinged on the fact that it was up to the court to make the bail decisions and because the officer would not have been involved in the drafting of the charge, given he was named as an alleged victim.
“I find the third ground of objection is not made out on the evidence presented to the court,” Justice Sullivan said.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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