MICHAEL MURRAY TOMLINSON

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

A legal practitioner pleaded guilty to a stalking offence (Criminal Code (WA) s338E(2)) after a four-month campaign against his former partner involving property damage, distribution of a sexual video and taking her dog, receiving a nine-month suspended sentence. The State Administrative Tribunal found him guilty of unsatisfactory conduct. Considering that its available penalties (reprimand, fine, or suspension up to two years) were insufficient to protect the public, it transmitted a report to the Supreme Court (full bench) to decide on striking off or a longer suspension, and suspended him from practice in the meantime. No express finding of dishonesty was made. In a supplementary decision he was ordered to pay costs of $8,477.31 within 12 months.

Duties found breached:

• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Illegal conduct continued for nearly four months, ending only after police surveillance
• Conduct escalated and was calculated to cause maximum humiliation, hurt and fear
• Distributed edited sexual video to victim's workplace supervisor and to police
• Repeated property damage and unauthorised entry to victim's home; removed her pet dog
• Severe and lasting impact on the victim (humiliation, fear, depression, relocation from Perth)
• Practitioner had not recovered from and showed little remorse for his conduct; failed to attend the disciplinary hearings

Mitigating factors:

• Plea of guilty in criminal proceedings
• No prior record; conduct out of character
• Acknowledged the unsatisfactory conduct
• Psychological evidence explaining emotional crisis/trauma following relationship breakdown
• Low assessed risk of reoffending while not in a relationship

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=8477.31"]