Junaini Bin Manin
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
Junaini bin Manin, an advocate and solicitor of 18 years' standing, was convicted on five charges of criminal breach of trust under s 409 Penal Code (with eight further charges taken into consideration) for dishonestly misappropriating clients' funds totalling over $1.36 million (or $1.68 million including TIC charges) affecting 12 clients over about seven years. He was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. The Law Society applied to make absolute the show cause order. The court accepted the conviction as final, found dishonesty committed in his capacity as solicitor, and held mitigating factors did not outweigh the need to protect the public and the profession's good name. He was struck off the roll and ordered to pay $3,000 costs.
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Defalcation took place over about seven years involving 12 clients
- Huge sum misappropriated (over $1.68 million including TIC charges)
- No restitution made
- Money squandered on personal extravagance including three cars, housing and vehicle loans, credit card bills
- Case qualified as 'worst case scenario'
Mitigating factors:
- First offender
- Principal breadwinner for two families
- Pleaded guilty at first instance and cooperated with police
- Lost nearly half a million dollars in bad investments; committed offences out of desperation
- Remorseful and returned from Australia to face charges
- Failure to make restitution due to impecuniosity not deliberate
- Made social contributions to community