A lawyer convicted of stealing from his clients will not be sentenced until next year after the Supreme Court granted him an adjournment.

Tyrone Quinn, 37, was found guilty in November of three counts of theft by a unanimous verdict after a jury found that he had taken a total of $483,000 from compensation payments to his clients.

While the matter returned to the Supreme Court for sentencing yesterday, Quinn urged the court to adjourn it until next year as he had been unable to review legal documents to prepare his defence.

He told the court that only recently he had received sentencing submissions from the Crown but had been unable to review the Criminal Code or relevant cases while on remand at the Westgate Correctional Facility.

Quinn, who represented himself during the trial, said he had requested access to computers at the prison but had not yet received it.

“I have asked for it,” he said. “I have asked persistently. I have just short of harassed.”

Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe adjourned the matter until February 1 for a new sentencing date to be set, loaning Quinn one of his own legal books to assist him as he prepares his submissions.

The court heard over the course of the trial that Quinn had represented Jacqueline Trott in 2020 when she sought compensation for an injury she suffered working as a security guard.

Ms Trott said that he advised her to accept an award of $100,000 and, near the end of February 2021, he informed her that the money had been transferred.

He then gave her an envelope with $13,000 in it and said that the rest of the money was transferred to her account, but no such transfer was ever made.

Larry Brangman told the court that he had retained Quinn in March 2019 after an accident had caused him cuts and a dislocated hip.

He settled for $300,000 in April 2020 but became suspicious after he did not receive the money.

Mr Brangman said he was told by Colonial Insurance in March 2021 that the money had been sent out almost a year earlier and that he had still not received the funds.

Jenna Riley, the third complainant, said she had settled a case for $89,000 and was told by Quinn that she would received the funds in a matter of weeks.

She later contacted Freisenbruch-Meyer Group, which told her that the funds had already been sent to Quinn and, after months of trying to get the money, she went to the police.

Quinn acknowledged in court that he had received the funds for the clients but said he had no intention of permanently depriving them of the money.

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

Quinn said he did not know the men or their “problem”, but he complied with their demands after they threatened him and his family, paying them thousands of dollars and making a range of payments on their behalf.

The defendant acknowledged that he had also used the funds to make payments unrelated to the threats or the clients, but maintained that he had always intended to give his clients what they were owed.

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