Bad lawyering

Theft, forgery, buried loot, obsessive infatuations, fabulous explanations ... Things "turned sinister" for Bendigo solicitor Euan Vance ... He pinched $1.2 million and got two-and-a-quarter years on the bottom ... Excellent prospects of rehabilitation ... Kate Lilly reporting 

Euan Vance: "I have decided not to lie"

A Bendigo solicitor, and former Presbyterian minister and army chaplain, who misappropriated $1.2 million from an elderly client has admitted he was a "bad lawyer". 

Fifty-three year old Euan Vance also trousered $14,000 in the administration of another client's estate. 

Last month, Vance pleaded guilty to 17 charges under two indictments in the Victorian Supreme Court.   

On September 5, Justice Michael Croucher, struck Vance from the jam roll and sentenced him to four years and six months porridge.  

The dirty deeds

In 2009, George Cutts sought to give Vance financial power of attorney. George was 87-years-old at the time and lived in a nursing home after suffering a stroke. 

As Cutts was physically unable to sign the document, the kindly Vance instructed his employee solicitor, Jessica Taylor, to do so on his behalf. There were no witnesses and the solicitor later forged the signature of two other employees on the document. 

Over the next 18 months, Vance withdrew over $1.2 million from Cutts' accounts by transferring funds and cashing in term deposits.  

In his initial interview with police, Vance claimed the following dealings were carried out in his client's best interests:

• $130,000 spent purchasing cars for female employees and their families. Ms Taylor also received money to pay for a holiday as well as her rent and utility bills. Vance had asked her to leave her boyfriend and marry him. However, in court he claimed the gifts were made in accordance with an instruction from Cutts to spend 30 percent of his assets assisting single mothers.  

• A $200,000 property purchased as premises for Vance's legal practice. A further $80,000 was used to purchase another block of land. The water and rates were put under the name "John Xerxes" alongside a false address and date of birth. Vance argued both the properties were intended to be good investments for the client.

• Over $340,000 withdrawn and buried under the dirt floor of Vance's shed. The solicitor said he took this step in order to guard Cutts' assets in the wake of the global financial crisis.  

• A further $400,000 withdrawn and unaccounted for.  

In 2010, Vance forged the signature of an employee on a probate jurisdiction form for the will of a Mrs Doyle. He then requested $14,000 to be paid directly into his personal account, rather than a trust account. 

In court, the accused said he was under the impression that he was entitled to the money as payment for legal work he had performed.  

He said administering the Doyle estate had been a difficult and time-consuming process. Curiously, he had no accurate record of the time spent working on the file. In addition, the interim invoice precisely matched the figure in Mrs Doyle's bank account. 

In other evidence to the judge he explained how he sacked his first wife, who had been working at his law firm: 

"She was a woman who had a lot of fine qualities, but one of her missions in life was to constantly correct me. We'd get home and she'd say, 'Have you rung so and so? Have you done such and such.' ... In the end I had to say, 'You're fired'." 

Judge's findings 

Unfortunately, for poor Euan, Justice Croucher found most of the explanations for filching Cutts' money were unconvincing. HH held:

"I do not accept that Mr Cutts gave him instructions to give 30 percent of his wealth to single mothers or that he was storing $340,000 of Mr Cutts' cash under the floor of his shed for fear of a run on the banks in the wake of the GFC. Nor do I accept that the shadowy Mr Xerxes even exists, let alone that Mr Cutts gave any instructions about putting property in the name of such a person. All of that is just nonsense. In fact, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that none of those claims are true." 

He found that Vance did not intend to abuse his client's trust at the time the power of attorney was executed. However, Vance's intentions "turned sinister" at some later point. 

In addition, Croucher was sure Vance had used the money largely for his own purposes:

"In particular, he used those funds in a sad attempt to buy the affection of others ... He must have kept at least some of the $340,000 cash stockpile for his own purposes ... I have no doubt that a large proportion of it would have been spent, and not for the benefit of Mr Cutts, had the offending gone unchecked. That Mr Vance cannot account for over $400,000 of the money spent is troubling. I expect we shall never know where it all went." 

Despite this, the judge was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused bought the two properties for his own purposes. 

He also found there was a reasonable possibility that Vance thought he was entitled to the funds in Mrs Doyle's bank account. 

Excellent prospects of rehabilitation 

Among the charges were crimes carrying maximum penalties of 10, 15 and 20 years in prison. However, HH identified a range of mitigating factors in order to justify a lower sentence. These included:

• Vance's cooperation with the police - in particular, leading them to the money that was buried under his shed; 
• The fact that he pleaded guilty to the charges and expressed remorse; 
• His lack of criminal history and previous good character; 
• His loss of career; 
• The 19 month delay that occurred between arrest and charge and the further delay between charging and sentencing.   

Overall, HH seemed to envisage a happy ending for Euan, deciding he had an "excellent chance of rehabilitation": 

"I am satisfied that Mr Vance will make the best of prison and of his life upon his release. His life was in disarray at the time of the offending. His marriage was breaking down. He was struggling to keep up with his practice. But, as Mr Vance told me in evidence, he has had the good fortune to meet another woman, and is now happily married and hopeful of having children. He has worked in various occupations since his practice was closed, including in a sausage factory, a bread factory, in internet marketing and with computers. He has tried to educate himself in many ways. He is hopeful of travelling with his wife to Ghana, whence she hails, and perhaps making a life there. In short, he is determined to make a go of things. And I think he will."

Euan told the judge the extent of the change that had come over him: 

"I did tell a lot of lies when I was in legal practice and I was always covering up my badness, but because of my increasing trust in god ... I have decided not to lie." 

Mercifully, the judge granted an application from the Legal Services Commissioner to remove Vance from the jam roll, accepting he "is not a fit and proper person to be a legal practitioner and will likely remain so for the indefinite future". 

He was sentenced to four years and six months in prison, with a congenial non-parole period of two years and three months.  

The Victorian injustice system

Interestingly, in June this year Euan created a blog spot called The Victorian Injustice System at legalhelpforyounow, in which he sought to apply a heavy coat of gloss to his misdeeds. He presented a pitiful story of an innocent victim done over by the coppers and insulted by the court: 

"I know a man who was a lawyer. He had a client who gave him instructions about how to use the client's money. The man followed these instructions which were not illegal. As a result of following the client's instructions, the police became involved because some of the movements of money were unusual, but not illegal, but the police decided to investigate because they wanted to try to unearth a criminal." 

 He listed 35 indignities and injustices to which he had been subjected, adding: 

"If he is eventually acquitted, he will not get his items back, he will not get his money back, he will not get his reputation back, he will not get his nights in custody back, he will not get his previous good relationships back, he will not get his business back, or his lost income back.

How is this just? This is not just, it is totally unfair." 

Before he was sentenced the god fearing Vance had been training himself in self-defence, "should the need arise in prison". 

R v Vance; Legal Services Commissioner v Vance

Kate Lilly reporting