Travis Keith Sturgeon

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

Travis Keith Sturgeon, a solicitor at a Cairns firm, acted for the executor of an estate while in an intimate relationship with a beneficiary. Over a three-week period he forged the executor's electronic signature on five documents, purported to witness one forged signature, made knowingly false statements to a bank and aged-care group that a beneficiary was terminally ill to expedite release of estate funds, deleted firm records, and lied to a principal about the client's whereabouts to impede inquiry. QCAT found all 12 charges made out and found the conduct amounted to professional misconduct marked by dishonesty. The Tribunal found him probably permanently unfit to practise and recommended his name be removed from the roll, with costs against him.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• No taking unfair advantage
• Not mislead third parties or opponents
• Personal probity and fitness to practise
• Disclose referrals, commissions and benefits
• Handle inadvertently received material
• Safeguard documents and limit liens
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Course of dishonest conduct rather than a single lapse of judgment
• Conduct motivated by personal financial benefit for himself and his de facto partner (property purchase in South Australia)
• Compounding forgery by purporting to witness the forged signature
• Deleting firm records and lying to a principal to impede inquiry
• Disengaged from the disciplinary proceedings and put on no material to mitigate

Mitigating factors:

• No prior disciplinary history
• Conduct occurred over a relatively short period (18 December 2015 to 7 January 2016)
• Stated he did not wish to practise as a solicitor in the future