Nicky McWilliam clashes with lawyers as her father’s EA trial over $1.3m in allegedly stolen money

A high society lawyer has clashed with defence counsel in court over claims of a toxic culture in her wealthy family.

The daughter of one of the eastern suburb’s richest men has clashed with defence lawyers in court over questions about whether there was a “toxic atmosphere” in her family.

Nicky McWilliam — the daughter of the late property mogul Thomas Breuer and wife of ex Channel 7 executive Bruce McWilliam — was given a rebuke by Judge Garry Neilson in court on Tuesday and reminded that “you are not deciding this case”.

Dr McWilliam, a well known Sydney lawyer, is giving evidence in the Sydney District Court trial of Cheree Curran, who has pleaded not guilty to stealing almost $1.3 million from Mr Breuer while working as his executive assistant.

After several heated exchanges with Ms Curran’s barrister Mike Smith, Judge Neilson told Dr McWilliam to answer only the questions being asked of her as she was cross examined in front of a jury.

Nicky McWilliam arrives at the Downing Centre Court on Tuesday Picture: Rohan Kelly.

“Please just listen to the questions and answer them,” Judge Neilson told Dr McWilliam, who has a doctorate of law. “You are not deciding this case, nor am I.”

“ … This area of cross examination is designed not to go to any particular issue but to the circumstances of (your) family and whether, to put it bluntly, the atmosphere was toxic. Do you understand?”

This comes as the jury were discharged on Tuesday. The trial will now have to go before a new jury on a yet to be decided future date.

Ms Curran has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of dishonestly obtaining a financial benefit by deception over allegations she siphoned $1.28 million from Mr Breuer’s bank accounts to her own over three years.

Ms Curran’s lawyer Paul McGirr said on Tuesday: “Unfortunately my client is going to have to wait for what could be a significant amount of time to start a whole new trial through absolutely no fault of her own.

“Putting aside the costs to my client and the public purse of losing an entire jury that sat for more than a week you could appreciate the stress for a person who has never had any charge whatsoever hanging over her head.”

Cheree Curran with lawyer Robert Candelori. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

Mr Breuer died in 2022 aged 89 after a life that saw the Hungarian-born man escape the Holocaust for Sydney eastern suburbs where he built up an enormous amount of wealth via his property and business empire.

The jury was told last week of a claim by Ms Curran that she made the transfers on her wealthy boss’s orders to pay off women, grifters and public officials.

On Tuesday, Mr Smith took Dr McWilliam through text messages on a group chat that allegedly showed significant tensions in the family.

This included what Mr Smith suggested was an ongoing source of tension in the family that Mr Breuer was giving money to some of his grandchildren while keeping the gifts secret from others who were instructed “Don’t tell your parents”.

Mr Smith put it to Dr McWilliam that, “Your father was seeking to give money to grandchildren and keep that secret from your brother (Tony).”

Dr McWilliam responded, “You are making it sound a lot worse than it was … It wasn’t as cloak and dagger as that.”

“It wasn’t really like that,” Dr McWilliam told the jury. “Because Tony knew it was happening … everyone knew it was happening.

The late Thomas Breuer,

“We’re an explosive European origin family and everybody screams and shouts and says dreadful things about each other and then the next day they were friends,” she said.

At another point, Dr McWilliam was shown other texts, including one from her nephew that highlighted a similar dispute.

“It is not abuse, they are facts,” the nephew wrote in the text. “If Nicky is lying unknowingly, she should have been upfront about what was going on and not hidden … but the fact is she did,” the text said.

The jury was told another text was underneath it that read, “Personally, I find the behaviour deeply helpful and it makes me feel sick.”

Judge Neilson ordered the matter return to court on November 1 for a new judge and jury to be appointed to the case.

Originally published as Nicky McWilliam clashes with lawyers as her father’s EA trial over $1.3m in allegedly stolen money