Drugs & the legal profession

Police check video for clues to barrister's collapse
Jeremy Roberts and Michael Davis
May 17, 2007

POLICE have recovered video surveillance footage from the luxury Adelaide hotel where Melbourne barrister Peter Hayes QC was found naked and unconscious in his suite last Friday morning.

Detectives working in three rolling shifts were trying to identify any further visitors to Mr Hayes's room on the 14th floor of the Stamford Plaza last Thursday night.

A 28-year-old woman is alleged to have given addictive drugs to Mr Hayes, who remains in an induced coma in Royal Adelaide Hospital. She was issued a notice of summons on Tuesday and is expected to be charged with administering a drug of dependence.

Police are waiting for Mr Hayes to emerge from the coma to interview him and for the results of toxicology tests.

Staff of the Stamford Plaza refused to answer questions about Mr Hayes's collapse, except to say all "policies and procedures" were followed.

Mr Hayes was discovered by former bikie Tony Sobey on the day he was to appear for him in a civil matter in the Federal Court.

It is understood members of the public were free to walk in off North Terrace and take the lift to any floor of the Stamford. The Adelaide Hilton International, also a five-star hotel, has lifts that can only be activated by electronic room keys.

Former National Crime Authority chief, Melbourne barrister Peter Faris QC, yesterday said drug use was prevalent among some members of the Melbourne legal profession. "I think everyone needs to face up to a few facts, like a lot of senior wealthy people in the profession use cocaine," said Mr Faris.

"I just think if something could be done about it ... someone else might not die."

Mr Faris said the legal profession was "very conservative" and had its head in the sand on the drugs issue.

"They'll just treat the Hayes thing as a one-off situation and I don't think it is, and that's why I'm complaining about it.

"What's happened to Peter Hayes is absolutely horrifying. I know Peter reasonably well and I like Peter.

"It's just such a terrible waste and a terrible tragedy."

Victorian Bar Council chairman Michael Shand QC, last night dismissed the comments by Mr Faris as "nonsense".

"They're extreme and unsubstantiated," Mr Shand said.

"The Bar Council is vigilant at maintaining the highest standards of practice at the bar ... No such case of drug use has come before the council during my time on it."

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Cocaine and the law
Karen Kissane
May 19, 2007

PETER Hayes has long been known as a brilliant advocate. "He's an eloquent and beautifully spoken barrister," says fellow QC David Galbally. "His choice of words, the way he delivers, is very silky."

Hayes has also long been known as a moody man, volatile and irascible. Two years ago, a solicitor who had worked with Hayes decided that this was not just his temperament. In 2005 the solicitor made a formal complaint accusing Hayes of being "an inveterate cocaine user".

He asked the ethics committee of the Victorian Bar to have Hayes tested for drug use and suggested he be offered a psychiatric assessment.

In a letter that also claimed other erratic behaviour by Hayes, the lawyer wrote that the allegations were made solely with a view to protecting the public: "We have no joy or satisfaction in making these complaints."

The complaint was dismissed. The committee wrote that it was satisfied "the complaint was vexatious and lacking in substance … your letters … do not provide any objective, substantive or credible information to support your allegations. The material put before the committee amounts to nothing more than conjecture, assertion and innuendo."

At the time, that was the end of that. But the issue of white powder on black silk has resurfaced.

Hayes is lying critically ill in an Adelaide hospital. He was found naked and unconscious last Friday in a hotel room by the client he was in Adelaide to represent, a former member of the outlawed Gypsy Jokers bikie gang. Following a police investigation of Hayes' collapse, a young woman, reportedly a prostitute, is to be charged with having administered him a drug of dependence.

As Hayes' family hold vigil by his bedside, the Melbourne bar is hotly debating whether there is a serious cocaine problem in its ranks. There are also questions about how the bar should handle any such problems.

After his complaint about Hayes was rejected, the solicitor wrote another letter in which he said that if such a complaint had been made about a policeman, the policeman would have been drug tested. He claimed "(The bar) is more intent on protecting the 'reputation' of the bar than protecting the public".

The silk-circuit scuttlebutt about cocaine use has many colourful stories to which no source will put their name. Ask what is going on, and mellifluous voices murmur into the phone tales of the individual with a serious addiction (a barrister arriving in court with a bleeding nose); accounts of middle-class indulgence (dinner parties at which lines of coke are set out with the pre-dinner drinks); and stories at the outer edge of wildness (lurid parties with cocaine and callgirls).

Outspoken QC Peter Faris this week claimed that cocaine use was "rife" at the bar and had almost replaced alcohol as the recreational drug of choice in some circles. He acknowledged that he had never seen examples of it himself but said he had heard reports of "more than one" QC using cocaine.

A lawyer who did not want to be named told The Age: "I do know that senior lawyers use drugs. We go to restaurants in Melbourne or Sydney — in Sydney it is much more prevalent with the top law firms — and you sit there at the table and you use your credit card to cut the cocaine into nice little lines."

He said some lawyers used amphetamines at night and then used tranquillisers to bring themselves down before they appeared in court in the morning.

He put the drug use down to wealth: "We earn extraordinary amounts of money. It's not just lawyers, it's investment bankers and the corporate world, senior management and advertising. It's part of the culture of having whatever you want and having a good time. We are intellectual enough to be able to think about risks and we are able to afford to get the pure stuff."

The former wife of one barrister, who believes her marriage broke up several years ago because of his cocaine use, said it was partly about narcissism: "(You have) young men earning huge sums of money, top-shelf wine, top-shelf addresses and top-shelf coke; men with egos already in outer space."

She said the arrogance of the "barrister funster league" was astonishing: they worked within the law but felt free to break it. "They are blokes with rules for themselves that don't apply to anybody else."

Cocaine use in the law hit the headlines with the jailing in 2001 of Melbourne lawyer Andrew Fraser for possession and trafficking. In 2004, The Australian Financial Review reported that Fraser had been a member of the "Negroni Commission" (named after the cocktail), a fast-moving social group of about 20 people, mostly lawyers, who had Friday lunches involving cocaine and callgirls. Fraser's downfall was said to have scared many of them off cocaine use. Several of those people were reported to have advanced through the legal ranks, with some having become QCs.

Faris claimed this week that police had bugged Fraser's telephones and that tapes exist of him naming lawyers who were users.

Australian Federal Police sources this week told The Age that there were taped intercepts of a conversation between a "supergrass" and drug boss Tony Mokbel in which a Melbourne QC was named as someone using drugs. But the police also warned that the two parties having the conversation were unreliable witnesses.

Most of the senior legal figures contacted by The Age this week said they knew nothing of any drug use at the bar and were mystified or irritated by the claims. Said Lex Lasry, QC, of Faris' call for lawyers to be drug-tested like professional footballers: "I would have thought that before making a broad public allegation like that — which, of course, does harm to the profession — there might be some actual evidence rather than his vague, un-examinable anecdotes. I have been in the law for 34 years and … I have never seen evidence of drug-taking nor been aware of it being prevalent and interfering with lawyers' ability to do their work."

Cocaine and callgirls are, in a way, private vices; the latter is not even illegal. Engaging a prostitute would not render a lawyer unfit to practise. Using cocaine would be a ground for complaint as it is illegal; if it were proved to be affecting a lawyer's performance, he could be suspended from practice immediately.

Those who dismiss the stories point out that so far, no lawyer has been reported to Legal Services Commissioner Victoria Marles over drug use.

They also argue that there is no evidence of barristers or silks appearing in court drug-affected, and that if there were, it would have been reported by dissatisfied clients, opposing barristers or judges.

David Galbally falls somewhere between the two opposing camps. He says he has never seen drug use himself but that drugs — predominantly cocaine — are a problem in the law, just as they are with sportsmen, industry, media and the professions.

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it was partly about narcissism: "(You have) young men earning huge sums of money, top-shelf wine, top-shelf addresses and top-shelf coke; men with egos already in outer space."

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High society awash with drugs
Liam Houlihan and Chris Tinkler
May 20, 2007 12:00am

THE privileged bastions of Melbourne high society are awash with hard drugs.

A Sunday Herald Sun probe found evidence of cocaine at barristers' chambers, elite gentlemen's clubs and the city's most exclusive restaurant.

Drug tests of the toilet cubicles of our most notable addresses yielded shocking results.

Staid members-only institution The Australian Club, home to legal and corporate high-fliers, tested positive to amphetamines, opiates, ecstasy and cocaine.

Traces of cocaine were discovered in the cubicles of Owen Dixon Chambers, which houses most of the city's barristers and their clerks.

The tests were conducted with Securetec DrugWipe kits, which are used by Customs officers and police.

Cocaine traces were detected at the Naval and Military Club in Little Collins St. The club was founded in 1881 for officers.

"While paying homage to its long and proud Australian military heritage, (the club) today draws its exclusive membership from men and women in business and the professions," the club's website says.

The Flower Drum Cantonese restaurant, adored by the city's sporting, political and business elite, tested positive to illegal drugs.

Traces of ecstasy and cocaine were found in the establishment's male toilet, as were strong readings for amphetamines.

Drug rehabilitation centre Odyssey House said substance abuse in high society was the unseen addiction.

"Unemployed people and the young are often made scapegoats, but alcohol and drug misuse can occur at all levels," chief executive Stefan Gruenert said.

"Your results don't surprise me.

"We see fewer of the top end publicly struggling with drugs because they go to private clinics where there's more privacy."

But Dr Gruenert said some wealthy people who had fallen a long way because of drugs had gone through Odyssey House's doors.

Patricia Fung, managing director of the Flower Drum, which has a waiting list of months, said she was unaware of drug use at the restaurant.

"We did not know. Management will now decide what can be done about this," she said.

The Naval and Military Club did not respond to calls and Australian Club general manager Ken Loomes refused to comment.

A prominent Victorian lawyer and former head of the National Crime Authority, Peter Faris, QC, claimed this week drug use was rife in the legal fraternity and called for random drug testing of lawyers.

His calls came after prominent barrister Peter Hayes, QC, was found naked and unconscious in an Adelaide hotel room after allegedly overdosing on a drug of dependence.

Victorian Bar chair Michael Shand said at the time that no cases of drug use had come before the council during his time.

But he refused to comment on the Sunday Herald Sun's findings.

Law Institute of Victoria president Geoff Provis rubbished claims there was a drug problem among lawyers.

He accused Mr Faris of a "horrendous beat-up" and said he should "put up or shut up".

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'No sign' of drug use
Gary Hughes
May 24, 2007

VICTORIAN Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Warren has said she is not aware of any problems of drug abuse within the ranks of senior lawyers.

Justice Warren's comments follow the death from a suspected overdose of prominent Melbourne barrister Peter Hayes QC.

"As a barrister and a judge I have never seen any sign of it ... never, ever a hint of it," Justice Warren said.

She said she was also not aware of a complaint made two years ago to the Victorian Bar Council about Hayes's drug-taking.

Victorian solicitor Issac Brott told The Australian yesterday that Hayes might not have died if the council had investigated his complaint, rather than dismiss it.

Hayes, 54, died in hospital on Monday night, 10 days after being found unconscious and naked on the floor of his room in Adelaide's Stamford Plaza hotel. Two women, thought to be prostitutes, were believed to have been in his room before his collapse. One of the women is to be charged on summons with administering a drug of dependence.

Following Hayes's collapse, two senior Melbourne lawyers, Peter Faris QC and David Galbally QC, raised concerns about drug use by barristers.

Justice Warren, who went to university with Hayes and his wife Mary, said on Melbourne radio yesterday that anyone with information about criminal activities should report it to police.

Asked about calls for compulsory drug testing for barristers, she said she wondered why lawyers should be "singled out".

"If that is going to start to happen, maybe then we need to look at all professions: doctors, journalists, whoever," Justice Warren said.

"There is no suggestion and I've never seen any sign that there is drug or alcohol abuse in the judiciary.

"If I had the slightest hint that a judge was under such pressure that they were consuming too much alcohol, that their performance was in some way not up to scratch, I would take steps about it."

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