Thirty years ago, solicitor Howard Hilton was jailed for bribing the NSW prisons minister to let his clients out of jail early.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Not only was he jailed and struck off the legal register, but "for a period his name became synonymous with corruption".
As part of a recent bid to have the 73-year-old readmitted to the profession, his barrister David Bennett, QC, asked the NSW Supreme Court: "If not now, when?"
The answer is never.
Justice Robert Beech-Jones ruled on Thursday that Mr Hilton "surreptitiously and deliberately" pursued a scheme that involved the corruption of a public official at the highest echelon of government.
The judge was referring to the great corruption scandal of the 1980s. Then-corrective services minister Rex "Buckets" Jackson was jailed in 1987 after he was found to have "prostituted his high office" by accepting bribes to feed his gambling addiction.
Mr Hilton was also jailed, for paying bribes for the early release of his clients, alleged Mafia figures who had been jailed over a marijuana crop.
Justice Beech-Jones acknowledged that Mr Hilton and his family had paid a very heavy price for his crime.
But he also noted that Mr Hilton's crime involved him taking a number of steps over a period of time, "at all times knowing that his conduct was corrupt".
It wasn't a momentary moral weakness, the judge noted, but "amorality on his part".
Robert Newlinds, SC, for the Legal Profession Admission Board, had submitted that such conduct could not be overcome by "mere apologies and testimonials from friends and colleagues".
Mr Hilton produced more than 40 character references attesting to his remorse and current good character.
Arts patron and philanthropist Simon Mordant, who visited Hilton in jail, told the court that "notwithstanding his dereliction of duty so many years ago" his friend was now a fit and proper person.
Others who provided testimonials included Macquarie Bank executive Robert Upfold, prominent silk Francis Douglas, retired criminal barrister Bruce Stratton, SC, former secretary of the NSW Labor Council Michael Easson, KPMG partner Grant Wardell-Johnson as well as a string of legal practitioners.
However, Justice Beech-Jones said that, despite his contrition and testamentary evidence produced on his behalf, public confidence in the legal profession would be undermined if Mr Hilton was allowed to practise law again.
His offence was "the worst category of offences affecting a person's fitness and propriety to join the legal profession", the judge said.
He also noted that Mr Hilton's inability to explain why he committed the crime "makes it more difficult for him to persuade the court that he would not misconduct himself again".
