Judge David McNaughton was due to represent Graham, then known as Paul Francis Magee, at a trial in the High Court at Auckland in 1999 but Magee failed to show up. He was accused of being part of a major drug ring supplying Ecstasy and LSD to nightclubbers. At the time then-lawyer McNaughton told the court: "For all I know he could be on a slow boat to China."
The judge was taken aback last night when told by the Herald on Sunday Magee faced a lengthy jail sentence in Scotland for attempting to murder a law chief.
"No way in a million years would I expect him to turn out to be a professional hitman. It's astonishing," McNaughton said. "I remember he was a charming and funny guy who was a good raconteur. He wasn't a tough man and was terrified of the police."
McNaughton - who was in the headlines earlier this month after bailing a man who has since been charged with killing Auckland schoolgirl Christie Marceau - said he'd often wondered what happened to Magee. "The night before his court appearance he called and told me that it wasn't that he didn't have absolute confidence in my ability, but he wasn't coming the next day. Sure enough, he didn't turn up.
"I always thought he'd end up on a fishing boat somewhere or be living down south or on the West Coast, having simply disappeared."
But a jury in the High Court at Edinburgh heard how Graham boasted to a workmate a few weeks after the attack of being paid £10,000 ($20,000) by a man in a BMW to "do in a judge".
Graham told the court he was born in Ireland as Paul Francis Magee before migrating to New Zealand aged 9. When he moved to the UK he became Robert Graham.
After the Edinburgh attack he moved to London where he was DNA tested for a drink-drive offence. Shortly after, he fled to Australia where he was arrested and taken back to Scotland.
Following the verdict, prosecutor John Logue said: "In 2006, Robert Graham targeted and tried to kill Leslie Cumming because he was paid to do so."
Logue added Graham had been brought to justice by the perseverance of local police who tracked him down, assisted by Interpol and authorities in New Zealand and Australia.
Graham denied the assault, claiming he saw Cumming being attacked by unknown men wearing balaclavas and had intervened to stop him getting "a bigger hiding".
But during the nine-day trial the prosecution dismissed his account as "utter nonsense". He will be sentenced this month.
New Zealand police last night confirmed they assisted their Scottish counterparts in his capture. A spokesman added: "Magee absconded from New Zealand in 1999 and is still wanted on outstanding drugs charges. We will wait for the outcome of the court action and [decide] on any action."
Yesterday, Judge McNaughton recalled Magee insisted he wasn't a major player on the Auckland drug scene and he believed his story had a ring of truth about it.
"He said he liked going to nightclubs and took a bit of drugs like Ecstasy but that after he started hanging about with these people he gradually escalated from using to selling," McNaughton said.
"He certainly wasn't a down-on-his-luck druggie and I think he had quite a good job promoting events for Red Bull.
"Something pretty drastic must have happened to him down the years to have turned into a gangland hitman."
MAGEE PROBABLY LEFT COUNTRY BY BOAT
Hitman Paul Magee is believed to have slipped out of New Zealand on a fishing boat to Thailand.
He failed to turn up for his trial, accused of supplying LSD and Ecstasy to Auckland's trendy nightclub set, along with a ring of accomplices. At the time Magee was an unemployed fisherman from Remuera.
His co-accused, systems engineer Philip Vialoux, was jailed for 13 months and mother-of-three Jacqueline Finlayson for three years. The man believed to be the gang's mastermind, Wilhelmus Kim Van Lent, was sentenced to 13 years' jail. Another Auckland woman, Janette Botica, got 18 months.
As Robert Graham, Magee fathered three children in Scotland with his former partner Mary Ann O'Neill, 26, but he did not tell her he had two names.
