Legal Services Commissioner v Henaghan

QUEENSLAND CIVIL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL

CITATION:

Legal Services Commissioner v Henaghan [2025] QCAT 258

PARTIES:

LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSIONER

(applicant)

v

CHRISTOPHER MATTHEW HENAGHAN

(respondent)

APPLICATION NO/S:

OCR135-24

MATTER TYPE:

Occupational regulation matters

DELIVERED ON:

3 July 2025

HEARING DATE:

29 May 2025

HEARD AT:

Brisbane

DECISION OF:

Justice Freeburn

Assisted by:
Ms Susan Forrest, Practitioner Panel Member

Dr Julian Lamont, Lay Panel Member

ORDERS:

1.     The Tribunal finds that the respondent engaged in professional misconduct.

2. The Tribunal recommends that Christopher Matthew Henaghan be removed from the roll pursuant to section 456(3)(a) of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld).

3.     The respondent pay the applicant’s costs of the discipline application.

CATCHWORDS:

PROFESSIONS AND TRADES – LAWYERS – COMPLAINTS AND DISCIPLINE – PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT AND UNSATISFACTORY PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT – CRIMINAL OFFENCES – where the Legal Services Commissioner brings a discipline application against the respondent – where the respondent was convicted on one count of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child – where the respondent accepted and admitted the conduct subject of the disciplinary charge – where the applicant submits the Tribunal ought to be satisfied that the Respondent’s conduct  amounts to professional misconduct – where the Respondent does not contest that his conduct amounts to professional misconduct – whether the respondent’s conduct amounts to professional misconduct

PROFESSIONS AND TRADES – LAWYERS – COMPLAINTS AND DISCIPLINE – PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT AND UNSATISFACTORY PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT – CRIMINAL OFFENCES – where the Legal Services Commissioner files a discipline application against the respondent – where the applicant submits that tribunal should recommend the removal of the respondent’s name from the roll– where respondent accepts his name should be removed from the roll – whether the appropriate sanction is for the tribunal to recommend that the respondent’s name be removed from the roll

Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld), s 419, s 456, s 462

Adamson v Queensland Law Society Inc (1990) 1 Qd R 498, applied

Law Society of South Australia v Rodda [2002] SASC 274, cited
Legal Services Commissioner v Desacola [2023] QCAT 271, cited

Legal Services Commissioner v Randall [2019] QCAT 217, cited

APPEARANCES & REPRESENTATION: This matter was heard and determined on the papers pursuant to s 32 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld)

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. Mr Henaghan was admitted to the legal profession in New Zealand in 1981. Then he became admitted in Victoria in 1985 and in New South Wales in 1997. He held an unrestricted practising certificate from 2011 to 2021, and then an unrestricted employee practising certificate from September 2021 until February 2022. Then, for the reasons that follow, Mr Henaghan’s practising certificate was cancelled.

2. On 19 April 2022, Mr Henaghan was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 5 years, suspended after 20 months, for maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child. The offending conduct had occurred a decade previously, from March 2012 to March 2014. The complainant was between 9 and 12 years at the time of…