Leigh Finch: Wollongong barrister suspended from practising law after public exposure offences

A Wollongong-based barrister has been suspended from practising law after he was convicted for two vile public indecency offences, from walking the streets with no pants, to masturbating in a bush.

Wollongong barrister Leigh Finch. Picture: Supplied

An Illawarra-based barrister has been suspended from practising law after he was convicted for vile public exposure including touching himself while wearing a pink bra near a public beach.

Leigh Finch, 48, was convicted in Wollongong Local Court on April 29 on two charges of wilful and obscene public indecency.

The charges – which Finch pleaded guilty to – and subsequent law suspension stems from two incidents in April where the barrister was caught in Wollongong exposing his genitalia.

Court documents state on April 23, Finch was walking along a Kembla St footpath wearing an unzipped jacket and no pants, with his genitalia and buttocks visible to the public.

A member of the public contacted police, who later stopped Finch outside a supermarket.

Wollongong-based barrister Leigh Finch has been suspended from practising law. Picture: Supplied

By this point, he was fully clothed.

Finch was arrested and granted bail.

Leigh Finch was convicted in Wollongong Local Court on April 29. Picture: NewsLocal

However, two days later on April 25, Finch was caught exposing his genitalia in Wollongong after police received several complaints from the public of the barrister masturbating in bushes near Puckey’s Beach in nothing but a trench coat and pink bra.

He was arrested again and bail was revoked.

Finch appeared in Wollongong Local Court via custody where he represented himself during sentencing on April 29 before Magistrate Geraldine Beattie.

He was convicted, sentenced to a nine month community corrections order and fined $750.

Two weeks later, the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner officially suspended Finch from practising law.

The orders – brought down on May 15 – state “Leigh Finch has contravened a condition of the certificate, namely the statutory condition in section 51 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) to notify the Bar Council in writing within seven days of his conviction for two notifiable summary offences in Wollongong Local Court on April 29, 2025”.

“The Bar Council reasonably believes that Leigh Finch is unable to fulfil the inherent requirements of an Australian legal practitioner, and the Bar Council considers it in the public interest to suspend the certificate immediately,” the suspension reads.

Finch’s suspension is indefinite.

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