Struck-off lawyer Alwyn O’Connor appeals 15-year-old guilty plea for abusing child

Alwyn O'Connor appeared in front of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal last year. Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson

WARNING: This story contains some graphic detail

A lawyer who was struck off after taking more than $150,000 from a vulnerable client is now attempting to have his historical child abuse convictions overturned.

Alwyn O’Connor was struck from the roll of barristers and solicitors last year after he was found to have used an imprisoned client’s bank account as “his own personal credit facility” where he withdrew large sums of money from it over several years.

While he put most of that money back, a further $25,000 in cash withdrawals were made from the account using an eftpos card O’Connor was entrusted with while his client was in prison.

He was caught lying to the tribunal last year when he admitted buying shirts for that client’s upcoming court appearance. Those shirts were purchased with the card he denied having access to.

Following his strike-off several legal professionals raised questions about how he was allowed to practice law at all given his history of dishonesty offending as well as having spent time in prison for assaulting his then partner’s three-year-old son.

O’Connor, who was going by his birth name Alwyn Kingsbeer in 2008, was found guilty by a jury of assault with a weapon and sexual violation after he became frustrated with the boy’s incontinence issues and inserted a ballpoint pen into his anus as well as a drawing pin into the head of his penis.

He also twisted his ears, rubbed his head into carpet causing burns, and flushed his head in a toilet.

O’Connor was sentenced to six years in prison but the pen and the pin incident were subsequently quashed on appeal and a retrial was ordered.

However, before that retrial could take place the Crown agreed to downgrade its initial charges of assault with a weapon and sexual violation on the basis that the offending was not sexually motivated but was rather a “warped form of discipline” arising from O’Connor’s frustration with the boy’s inability to use a toilet.

O’Connor then later pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of wilful ill-treatment of the child and served a total of 11 months in prison.

Now, some 15 years later, he has attempted to have that guilty plea overturned by the Court of Appeal after claiming that the Crown Solicitor incited his guilty plea by withholding relevant information.

O’Connor didn’t turn up to the hearing today and Crown Law said in its submissions that he had failed to engage in the court process since lodging his appeal by seeking multiple adjournments, failed to turn up to multiple other hearings and missed deadlines to submit his evidence to the court.

Counsel for Crown Law, Charlotte Brook, described O’Connor’s claim as “hearsay” and was unsupported by any actual evidence.

The only evidence Brook says O’Connor submitted to the court was a police vetting report, by an unknown author, made in 2021 which claimed that the charges were reduced on the basis that the main witness in the trial was unable to give evidence at a retrial.

O’Connor claimed he was not aware of this when a deal was reached to downgrade his charges and therefore the Crown Solicitor had committed a “flagrant abuse of process”.

“While the author of the vetting report is unknown, it was obviously written by a person who was not the decision maker and therefore not in a position to comment on the reasons why the charges were reduced,” Crown Law’s submission to the court reads.

“The applicant has nevertheless relied on it as the basis of an appeal against conviction premised on prosecutorial misconduct, without making even the most basic enquiries to ascertain the provenance and/or accuracy of that statement.”

Brook told the court today that a piece of evidence making such accusations would normally be accompanied by an affidavit to prove its authenticity.

“The crown doesn’t necessarily accept it’s an authentic police document, particularly given his (O’Connor’s) history of dishonesty offending,” she said.

“It may well be, but the fact there’s no name on it is curious.”

Crown Law was also taking the unusual step of seeking that O’Connor pay its legal costs should his appeal fail.

Ordinarily, it recognises that the appeal process is fundamental to a fair and credible justice system but because of the “frivolous” and “vexatious” nature of O’Connor’s case, his lack of engagement with the court process and lack of any explanation for why he lodged it early 13-years out of time, Brook was seeking costs on behalf of the Crown.

It’s not the first time O’Connor has turned to the higher courts in recent years in an attempt to overturn rulings by other judicial bodies.

Last year, immediately following his strike-off, he attempted to appeal the tribunal’s decision at the High Court.

However, he abandoned his appeal after he failed to obtain legal aid and wasn’t able to pay security for costs so the court dismissed his application.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.