MEGAN MARIE IN DE BRAEKT

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The Full Bench of the Supreme Court of Western Australia acted on a State Administrative Tribunal report finding Megan Maree in de Braekt guilty of professional misconduct across five incidents. The most serious (Incident A) involved knowingly and dishonestly misleading the Magistrates Court on two occasions about receipt of digiboard copies. The other four incidents involved discourteous, offensive, abusive and threatening conduct toward a magistrate, two police officers and a court security supervisor. The Tribunal also found she gave dishonest evidence and lacked insight. The Court agreed the practitioner was not a fit and proper person to remain on the Roll and ordered her name removed. No costs order was made as the Committee did not press for costs and the practitioner lacked capacity to pay.

Duties found breached:

• Report serious misconduct of others
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct repeated - misled court on two separate occasions before two magistrates
• No mitigating factors such as inexperience or duress
• Almost complete lack of insight and understanding of impropriety of conduct
• Gave dishonest/untrue evidence to the Tribunal
• Argumentative and belligerent in cross-examination
• Prior disciplinary finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct (2011 WASAT 1)
• No demonstrated remorse; increased risk of recurrence

Mitigating factors:

• Practitioner asserted she suffered chronic depression and a nervous breakdown / personal distress