Mr Ian John ROWBOTTAM

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

The Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (NT) found Ian John Rowbottam guilty of professional misconduct on two charges. First, before Justice Southwood on 17 May 2005 he falsely assured the court that another practitioner (Mr Maley) had been briefed and was across the Ibbotson matter, which the Tribunal found untrue and intended to mislead. Second, he swore an affidavit in the Court of Criminal Appeal making untrue assertions that Justice Southwood had dealt with him in an aggressive, demeaning and intimidating manner; the Tribunal found no objective support and concluded he knowingly intended to mislead the appeal court. Both breached Rule 17.6 and s44(1)(c)(ii) of the former Act. The Tribunal declined to strike him off, instead cancelling his practising certificate, barring re-issue for 6 months, requiring an ethics course, and ordering costs of $27,632.57.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Second charge involved a deliberate act of swearing an affidavit making untrue assertions implicating the conduct of a Supreme Court judge
• Practitioner maintained a strong but erroneous belief and keen appreciation of the rightness of his position
• Passage of time alone did not establish he could be trusted not to repeat conduct

Mitigating factors:

• Great turmoil at the firm due to marital breakdown between the two equity partners
• Considerable professional pressure from overlapping lengthy criminal trials
• On the first charge the practitioner was taken off guard by the judge's hypothetical question
• Justice Southwood was not in fact misled by the response
• The practitioner's client suffered no detriment from the affidavit
• Not motivated by greed or personal gain
• No further complaints against the practitioner since the events
• Genuinely (though wrongly) held belief that he had been treated differently by the judge; conceded some conclusions may not be justified