Fit and proper to be a lawyer?

The Herald reports on the case of Alwyn O’Connor who is about to get struck off for using an imprisoned client’s bank account as his own “personal credit facility”.

What amazes me is that the Law Society deemed him fit and proper to practice law in the first place, considering his record before 2014 when he was deemed fit and proper. This includes:

  • Four dishonesty charges In 2000
  • Nine dishonesty charges in 2005 with the judge describing him as a “conman” who seemed indifferent to consequences.
  • Three charges of assaulting his partner’s three-year-old son in 2006
  • Two charges of indecent assault in 2006 which were eventually overturned on appeal but where he admitted inserting a pen into the same boy’s anus and a drawing pin into the head of his penis.
  • Had been bankrupted twice

Now I’m all for second chances and rehabilitation. But how could the Law Society in 2014 have decided someone who did all of the above was a fit person to be a lawyer?

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