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Criminal lawyer facing Supreme Court over sexual assault charges found guilty of contempt of court for lock changes
A prominent criminal lawyer who was accused of sexually assaulting an underage girl has been found guilty of contempt of court for having the locks of his Melbourne office changed before a manager appointed to the firm could access the premises.
Naomi Neilson
Melbourne-based lawyer Glenn Thexton is awaiting penalties after being found guilty of contempt of court for changing the locks shortly after his practising certificate was suspended. When the manager appointed to the firm discovered the lock change, a series of emails confirmed he had worked with the property manager to do so.
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In October 2020, not long before the lock change, Mr Thexton was charged with one count of sexual assault with police alleging that he groped a 17-year-old girl in 2019. He disputed the charges and claimed he had just moved past the teen, adding that it was part of a broader conspiracy by Victoria Police because he “[knew] too much”.
In emails to the property manager for the landlord of the premises, Mr Thexton first claimed that he had changed his mind in terms of who should be making the lock changes because he had “obligations not to interfere with the manager”. Given this, he asked that the property manager take charge “given the rent has not been paid”.
In that same email, he offered to not only pay the locksmith but to pay a fee upfront before the job was done “to get them to change the locks”. This was before the manager – a partner of Thomson Geer – had the chance to access his Melbourne office but following the removal of documents to storage from his Sydney office.
The Victorian Supreme Court found that his actions in approving a quote, authorising the job to proceed, paying the locksmith’s fees in advance and delivering the original key to the locksmith “caused the locksmith to change the locks”. In doing so, Mr Thexton “deliberately obstructed [the partner] in performing his functions”.
When a lawyer supervised by the Thomson Geer partner came to pick up a physical document and found she could not turn the key, she was allegedly told by the property manager that the locks had not been changed and, if they had, the manager was unaware of it being done. This is despite emails that indicate the property manager liaised between Mr Thexton and the locksmith to arrange the change.
When the partner emailed Mr Thexton to inquire about the lock change, Mr Thexton was quick to reply that “he did not direct for the locks to be changed”. He added in a later email that his Sydney landlord had accessed his office and had destroyed client files, which was “of obvious concern that I would not want to see a repeat of that”.
When the partner attempted to obtain the keys from the landlord, after coming to an agreement that he could if three months’ rent was paid, the partner was told that he would still not get access as they “did not want to get in the middle of a dispute”. The partner eventually gained access by having the locks changed again.
Mr Thexton’s defence was that it was unclear who had caused the locks to be changed and he argued that the whole of evidence did not permit the court to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that he had “caused, procured or induced the locks to be changed”. He instead pointed to the property manager’s role.
“I find, beyond reasonable doubt, that Mr Thexton caused the locks to be changed at that premises. It may well have been that his reason for doing so was to cooperate with the landlord to force the manager to pay the rent on the premises, but that does not diminish or negate Mr Thexton’s role in effecting the change of the locks,” the Supreme Court found in judgement.
This judgement can be found on AustLII: Victorian Legal Services Board v Thexton (contempt) [2021] VSC 357 (21 June 2021).
