Bankrupt hospitality identity Damian Griffiths has a chequered past as an immigration lawyer

THE rise and recent fall of Brisbane hospitality identity Damian Griffiths has been well documented. Less well known about the now-bankrupt Doughnut Time entrepreneur is the chaos and dysfunction that also dogged his previous career.

Restaurant and nightclub entrepreneur Damian Griffiths.

CHEQUERED PAST

The rise and recent fall of Brisbane hospitality identity Damian Griffiths has been well documented.

Less well known about the now-bankrupt Doughnut Time entrepreneur is his chequered past as an immigration lawyer.

City Beat spies have referred us to regulatory action which shines a light on this largely obscured history.

It turns out that the chaos and dysfunction which afflicted Griffiths’ numerous eateries also manifested itself during his time helping foreigners gain residency and citizenship.

Griffiths, a 45-year-old native of Dalby, started working as a migration agent in Brisbane in 1996 after being admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court.

But his registration was cancelled in late 2000 when the Migration Agents Registration Authority determined he was “not a person of integrity or he is otherwise not a fit and proper person’’ after he was found to have violated the industry’s code of conduct over the handling of cases.

The decision was put on ice while Griffiths fought the indefinite ban.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunals eventually cut him some slack, suspending his registration for just two years starting in 2002 to give him “an opportunity to rehabilitate himself”.

It’s this ruling which provides a startling behind-the-scenes look at Griffiths’ modus operandi.

GREW TOO FAST

Like his bar and restaurant empire which expanded too fast, Griffiths’ immigration business grew very quickly to have offices in Sydney, Johannesburg, Harare, Hong Kong, Singapore, Durban, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, the tribunal found.

“It was a regular occurrence for Mr Griffiths to return from overseas with suitcases full of documents, statements, money in various national currencies and unsigned applications all thrown in together,’’ the ruling said.

“Mr Griffiths would often appear to be exhausted. He would instruct staff to sort it all out while he went away to recover. (An employee) often filled in applications and signed on behalf of applicants because the documents had not been completed overseas.’’

The Tribunal also reviewed allegations that Griffiths kept about $75,000 in cash “in a biscuit tin in a safety deposit box at a bank for the purpose of hiding it’’ from the tax man.

Griffiths countered that he declared the money so the tribunal, unable to verify the allegations of wrongdoing, said it took “no account’’ of the matter in deciding the case.

But the tribunal savaged Griffiths over evidence of defective paperwork and sloppy record keeping, which his staff frequently had to clean up.

It determined that “the most serious allegations’’ against him related to the egregious case of a South African national.

The matter “was so badly handled that (the client) and his family went from living in Brisbane and running a convenience store, with a realistic chance of eventually obtaining Australian citizenship, to being deported and ending up back in South Africa’’.

“Not only was (the client’s) case badly handled by Mr Griffiths, but Mr Griffiths lied to (the client) about the progress of the matter.’’

Years later, his knowledge of the migration system helped him source dozens of foreign workers for his venues.

They are now out of a job, with many owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages and entitlements that they will never receive.

Griffiths has gone to ground since the collapse of his empire, which included Les Bubbles bistro, Limes Hotel, Alfred & Constance bar and Chester Street Bakery.

He did not respond to an email and phone message seeking comment yesterday.