A lawyer accused of stealing from his clients accepted that he had used funds he received on their behalf to cover unrelated business expenses but denied that he was “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

While Tyrone Quinn accepted that the funds should ideally have gone to his clients, he said that things were “chaotic” because of threats allegedly made against him.

“I admit that things could have been a lot better,” he told the Supreme Court yesterday. “I admit that with a clear head none of this should have taken place.”

Quinn, 37, faces three counts of theft totalling $483,000 after he failed to hand over compensation payments awarded to three of his clients.

The offences are alleged to have taken place between May 2020 and February 2021.

Mr Quinn has denied the offences and claimed that he had been extorted by gangsters who threatened his and his family’s lives.

He told the court that he was initially approached by two men in 2019 over a “problem” related to an illegal business transaction and that they demanded compensation.

Mr Quinn said he did not know the men or their “problem” but that he yielded to their demands out of fear for his family.

He told the court that he had paid the men thousands of dollars in cash and made several other payments on their behalf, including paying for architectural drawings and bookings with a boat rental business.

On the stand yesterday, Mr Quinn accepted that he had used funds received on behalf of his clients to make payments unrelated to the threats, but maintained that he always intended to pay the clients what they were owed.

Alan Richards, for the Crown, noted that the same day Mr Quinn received an $89,000 payment intended for Jenna Riley, he made a series of transactions.

In addition to $14,000 and a $15,000 withdrawals, both of which he said he made in response to demands from the gangsters, he made a $30,000 transfer for a business expense unrelated to Ms Riley.

The following day he made another $5,000 business payment, which he also accepted was unrelated to Ms Riley.

A day later, he said he made another two withdrawals in response to demands from the men threatening him, leaving only a small fraction of Ms Riley’s funds in the account.

Mr Quinn acknowledged that none of the $89,000 he received was passed on to Ms Riley, although he did give her $9,000 later that month which the business had received from other sources.

He told the court that he did not contact the gangsters to tell them he had received funds, but that they regularly went to his home and demanded to see his bank accounts.

“At that particular time, the individuals were coming quite frequently,” he said. “It felt like every day.”

While he accepted that he might have been able to hide the money by opening an account at another bank, he did not believe it would have stopped his harassers.

“These individuals are not satisfied until they are satisfied,” he said. “They just keep going and going and going.”

He told the court that he would have gone to the police about the threats if he did not have a family.

Asked by Mr Richards why he had prioritised business expenses over giving Ms Riley her money, he said: “At that particular time, there was an issue that had just come up, but I knew it needed to be sorted. I needed to resolve the issue that came up.”

Mr Richards suggested his actions went beyond “administrative difficulties” and into the realm of “dishonesty”, but Mr Quinn disagreed with that assessment.

Mr Quinn said that the firm was still in operation and had agreements in place which would soon leave it in a position to pay the complainants the money they are owed.

Asked if the same individuals who had threatened him could not simply come back and make further threats, he told the court the matter had been “resolved” and the men who had threatened him had told him they were satisfied.

The trial continues.

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