ROBERT CLARK mp ‘State Member for Box Hill Our Ref: 3446 Mr Simon Woodford PO Box 95 BOX HILL VIC 3128 Dear Mr Woodford Further to my previous letter, I've now received a reply from the Legal Services Commissioner, Mr Michael McGarvie, to my letter to him. Mr McGarvie writes that items 1 to 5 of the allegations you raised are historical or do not raise matters which his office has the power to investigate. However, he tells me that he has dealt with some of the allegations raised in item 6 and he anticipates that “Mr McTaggart now fully understands the law relating to unqualified practise’. Mr McGarvie makes the point that he is unable to go into details because he is not allowed to disclose information obtained from his investigations. Mr McGarvie also refers to the matters raised about Mr Howard Bowles, and says that Mr Bowles has no knowledge of the matters referred to in relation to racketeering and the American SEC. | hope this is of some assistance in knowing that these matters have been raised with and looked at by Mr McGarvie, although his inability to provide details means that unfortunately we do not know the precise outcome. If you have any further information that may be relevant to Mr McTaggart, you should feel free to provide that information directly to Mr McGarvie. His reference number for the matter is LNQ-2015-13099, fobert Clark MP Member for Box Hill Plas Follow me on robertclarkmp Here lw help... Phone: 9898 6608 Fax: 990 7180 Web: robertelark netPOBox 95 BOX HILL VIC 3128 25 July 2015, Hon Robert Clark 24 Rutland Road BOX HILL VIC 3128 Dear Sir Mr TREVOR McTAGGART understand that you are no longer responsible the administration of the state’s legal profession but regarded you highly for the work you in this area and would appreciate your assistance in a matter concerning one ‘TrevorMcTaggart who has a history of unqualified legal practice and what on the very best face of it could be described as sharp practice, I cannot say that I am aware of all of his chequered history but have become aware of the following: 1. In 1997 in reviewing the provisions of the Hearing Services Administration Bill 1997 Kelvin ‘Thompson detailed scams operated by companies called Ear Care and Better Care which had used telemarketing to induce members of migrant communities to pay money to pursue compensation claims that the companies were fully aware were unattainable by law. As part of their operations they used the names and letterheads of two legal firms “Anthony Raso and Associates” and “Vernon Barristers and Solicitors”. In his report to Parliament Kelvin Thompson spoke of his dismay that the Law Institute declined to take any action against these legal firms and described Trevor McTaggart as being one of the greatest conmen he had ever met. He went on to express his distress as to how many people had been cold bloodedly ripped off by the “low lifes” who ran Eye Care and his ‘annoyance that Trevor McTaggart was still walking the streets. In 2001 Trevor McTaggart was bankrupted by Morbane Securities after breaching the terms of a settlement he had entered into with them in 1997. He failed to have this overturned in a subsequent hearing in which Federal Magistrate McInnes noted several omissions and misstatements in McTaggart’s Statement of affairs and evidence given to the court. 3, In 2002 MrMcTaggart’s wife went bankrupt and Trevor prepared her Statement of Affairs. In a hearing to consider her discharge in 2005 it came to light that she had taken out finance in her maiden name to purchase a car for Trevor because of his poor credit history. The loan was subsequently defaulted on and Mr B H Pascoe, Senior Member of the AAT noted the non-disclosure of this transaction in documents prepared by Mr McTaggart and the apparent deception involved in the use of Mrs McTaggart’s maiden name in the finance application. 4. In 2010 another entity operated by Trevor McTaggart,the Green Loans Assessors Co-operative was named by Liberal Member for Bowman, Andrew Laming for not paying assessors for work that it had collected money for from the government under the Green Loans Scheme. Christine Milne claimed that she would refer the matter to the Auditor General’s office and Minister Penny Wong said her Department was seeking legal advice on the matter but Iam not aware as to whether either of these actions achieved anything.5. In 2011 McTaggart induced his business partners in Cool World Australia Pty Ltd to sign personal ‘guarantees on the basis that he was signing up to them as well. What he did not tell them was that he was planning to petition for his own bankruptcy two days later and he continued the non- disclosure of his bankruptcy to the creditor, Samil Power for some time after the event. Victorian Supreme Court Judge J Judd noted in a judgement on a case arising from this “McTaggart did not attempt to hide his contempt for ordinary concepts of honest business practice, or for Samil Power and its representatives... While I regard the conduct of McTaggart towards Samil Power and others (reflected in email conversations tendered to the court) as racist, dishonest, and wholly inexcusable, he gave the impression in the witness box of a man who saw nothing wrong in what he had done”. 6, In 2014 McTaggart took over the accounting work of Rodney Wallace and, together with a disgraced former councillor from Gippsland, came up with a legal strategy to launch two successive legal actions in names of parties with no assets. Both actions included the same claims despite most of them being proved to be unfounded in the first case and the victim of these actions was left with no viable way of recovering on the costs orders. The Legal Services people were undertaking an investigation of Mr McTageart's unqualified legal work and the involvement of them and a Lakes Entrance solicitor in the production and lodgement of affidavits they knew to contain significant falsehoods. As part of disproving the claims made in the affidavit they put together for the first hearing a document on the letterhead of “Vernon Barristers and Solicitors” (see paragraph 1) came to light and this seemed to cause great concem in the McTaggart camp. They then seemed to issue a number of spurious claims of their own to the Legal Services Board in order to find who had possession of documents produced under the name of Mr McTaggart’s old co-conspirators. On or about this time a chap by the name of Howard Bowles appeared to intervene to stop any further investigation of the matter. I am advised this included the intimidating of staff trying to pursue the ‘matter and similar treatment of witnesses that had provided information that was inconvenient to hhim. Ihave also been advised that he has been named in reports to the American SEC in relation to anti-racketeering matters they have been investigating; certainly his conduct in this matter has been quite odd and rendered the operation of his fiefdom quite dysfunctional. To add insult to injury I have been advised by the liquidator of Mr Wallace’s company that they have asked ASIC to investigate transactions constructed by Mr McTaggart to support an apparent “phoenixing” of the Wallace business into a new company, Amrod Constructions Pty Ltd but they are unwilling to do anything either. Tunderstand that these matters may longer be part of your shadow ministerial jurisdiction, but as someone who has always struck me as being across legal administration in this state I would appreciate any enquiries you can make and advice you can give as to the outcome of these enquiries. Yours faithfully Simon Woodford