GARY ROBERT WOODMAN

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

Gary Robert Woodman, a solicitor of 33 years' standing, was convicted in 2015 of two counts of grooming a child under 16 and one count of using the internet to procure a child under 16 (the 'child' being an undercover police officer). The QCAT Tribunal found the conduct constituted professional misconduct and that he was not presently a fit and proper person to engage in legal practice. However, it held he was not permanently unfit and declined to strike him off the roll. Given two years already spent out of practice, the Tribunal ordered that a practising certificate not be granted for a further four years and ordered costs on the Supreme Court scale. An earlier related decision ([2017] QCAT 149) refused his application for a non-publication order. No express finding of dishonesty was made.

Duties found breached:

• Personal probity and fitness to practise

Aggravating factors:

• Serious and distasteful criminal offending involving grooming and procuring a child
• Sexualised conduct including exposing himself and masturbating via Skype and instructing the purported child to masturbate
• Undermined public confidence in the legal profession

Mitigating factors:

• 33 years of practice with an untarnished professional and community record
• Early pleas of guilty after full hand-up committal and cooperation with authorities
• Genuine remorse and shame evidenced by apology letter and conduct
• Suicide attempt and extensive psychological/psychiatric treatment
• Medical evidence of low risk of reoffending
• No serious attempt to actually meet the child
• Significant health problems (stroke, heart surgery) and personal hardship
• Already effectively out of practice for two years since being charged

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_suspension_months=48"]