MICHAEL MURRAY TOMLINSON

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

Michael Murray Tomlinson, a legal practitioner, pleaded guilty to a stalking offence (Criminal Code (WA) s 338E(2)) after a nearly four-month campaign of property damage and humiliation against his former partner, Ms A, receiving a suspended nine-month sentence. The State Administrative Tribunal found him guilty of unsatisfactory conduct by illegal conduct. Given the gravity, his lack of recovery and remorse, and psychological evidence, the Tribunal held 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 longer suspension, and suspended him from practice pending that determination. No dishonesty was expressly found. In a supplementary decision (1 March 2006), he was ordered to pay the Complaints Committee's costs of $8,477.31 (including senior counsel's fees and a witness airfare), with 12 months to pay.

Duties found breached:

• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Illegal conduct continued for nearly four months until stopped by police intervention
• Conduct escalated and was designed to cause maximum humiliation (sending edited sex video to victim's workplace supervisor and police)
• Removal of the victim's pet dog, calculated to cause distress and fear
• Serious ongoing traumatic impact on the victim, who left Perth
• Practitioner had not recovered and showed no clear remorse; still viewed victim's conduct as morally justifying his actions
• Failure to attend the disciplinary hearings

Mitigating factors:

• Guilty plea to the criminal charge
• No prior record; conduct out of character
• Psychological evidence of severe emotional trauma/depression following the relationship breakdown affecting his conduct
• Assessed as very low future risk and not a physical danger to anyone
• Prospect of recovery within 18 months to two years with therapy

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