How former lawyer Pat Lennon sexually propositioned women he met while representing them
Women who were clients of former Melbourne lawyer Pat Lennon have told of how he exploited their vulnerabilities in order to form controlling sexual relationships – and then it turned nasty.
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Exclusive: Ice-smoking former lawyer Pat Lennon sexually propositioned women he met while representing them during Family Court proceedings.
Two women have described being enticed into controlling and abusive sexual relationships with the Melbourne lawyer that have made their lives hell, while a third said she rebuffed his “sleazy” advances.
Forming a sexual relationship with a client may violate ethical rules covering lawyers, but complaints about the conduct have so far fallen on deaf ears at the legal regulator.
In a text message, Mr Lennon told a woman who was financially and emotionally entangled with him: “I knew u would default that’s why I leant [sic] to you”.
“I own you now so u need to do as I say – that includes in the bedroom.”
Mr Lennon, whose clients have included underworld figure Mick Gatto and disgraced former jockey Danny Nikolic, is no longer a lawyer after handing in his practising certificate last year amid an investigation into him by the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner.
His wife, Jane Lennon, who too was under investigation, also handed in her certificate.
In November, Mr Lennon admitted in court to smoking ice in the past and, in January, he was convicted of possessing 10.8g of methamphetamine but spared jail.
However, the Legal Services Commissioner, Fiona McLeay, has taken no action against Mr Lennon over complaints about his sexual advances towards clients that date back at least four years.
The women who Mr Lennon propositioned cannot be named because the law forbids publicly identifying parties to Family Court proceedings.
One woman said she met him in 2016 or 2017 when she hired him to do a binding financial agreement with her ex-partner.
“He was dropping off some documents, he said we’ll have a little party,” she said.
“He came over with a bag of cocaine – I’d never had cocaine, I’d worked hard all my life.”
She said Mr Lennon lured her into a sexual relationship.
“For me, he was like my knight in shining armour, because I was from a broken relationship,” she said.
“He used to write love letter after love letter trying to get me to sleep with him.
“The idea just revolted me but he kept going and going and just wore me down.”
She said Mr Lennon was in sexual relationships with multiple women at the same time.
“Pat would control us by doing legal work for us,” she said.
“He had Miss Monday, Miss Tuesday – I was his favourite, apparently.”
“He finds out about you and then uses that to shame you.
“He’d lure us all in through our secrets or our weaknesses or our shame.
“If you’re not at home at 7pm in your negligee, hands behind your head, door unlocked, you’ll know all about it.
“He became abusive and violent; he called me a whore and a dirty Arab.”
In a 2021 complaint to the Legal Services Commissioner, she said Mr Lennon had a conflict of interest when pursuing her over an alleged debt.
“Mr Lennon is using his position as a senior officer of the court to frustrate the system and abuse me both financially, emotionally and psychologically,” she said in the complaint.
“He is unfit to be an officer of the court.”
A second woman who had an intimate relationship with Mr Lennon said she also met him when he was her lawyer in a Family Court case.
“He wangles and roots his way in when you’re emotionally vulnerable,” she said.
“Before you know it, he’s knocking on your door at midnight, and it just escalates from there.”
The woman said she borrowed money from Jane Lennon’s company, Argyle Lending, to cover costs including Mr Lennon’s legal fees, but could not keep up with repayments.
Mrs Lennon’s company, Argyle Lending, later sued the woman’s company over the loans. The woman said the case was settled on terms that allowed Mr Lennon to collect a year of rent from two properties the company owned.
More than two years later, she has been unable to regain access to one of the properties, in suburban Melbourne.
Efforts to serve a woman who is living there with eviction papers have been met with obscene and threatening voicemail messages.
“Stop putting these f--king letters in my f--king letterbox you f--king dumb slut or I’ll come to your house and I’ll cause a f--king ruckus there,” the occupier said in a May voicemail.
In another message, the occupier mixed legal jargon with obscenities, saying that eviction orders needed to be served on Jane and Pat Lennon, not her, while calling the woman an “imbecile”, a “f--king idiot”, a “f--king spastic”, a “f--king moron” and a “fat ugly slut”.
“Come here again and I promise you I’ll kick your f--king head in,” she said.
The woman who had a relationship with Mr Lennon has also been accused of damaging a garage door during a visit to his mansion to serve him with the eviction papers.
She denies the allegation and says she was assaulted while at the property.
The woman said Mr Lennon failed to turn up to her final hearing at the Family Court in 2018 because he was in Russia for the soccer World Cup.
We can reveal that this is not the only time Mr Lennon has failed to appear at a Family Court hearing.
In February last year, Family Court judge Alexandra Harland referred him to the Victorian Legal Services Board (VLSC) for investigation due to “conduct related to the non-appearance by Mr Lennon on two occasions while representing a party, causing delay to the matter”, a court spokesperson said.
Emails obtained by this publication show that the commissioner took no action against Mr Lennon, dropping the investigation in September last year.
A third woman said she hired Mr Lennon in 2017 to represent her after her relationship broke down.
She said she was referred to him by a friend “and then I found out she’d been sleeping with him for years”.
“His whole manner is sleazy – let’s go out for lunch, let’s go for dinner – and on the first meeting,” she said.
She complained to the VLSC about Mr Lennon in 2020.
“He always asked me to sleep with him and he has made me feel on many occasions a victim,” she said in the complaint.
“When I rejected him on several occasions, he made my life very hard.”
After an early victory in her case gave her control of the family home, she texted Mr Lennon to ask who would be there that weekend.
“Just me in my undies,” Mr Lennon responded.
The woman said that, after this, Mr Lennon “bullied me in the court and I lost my house”.
“My ex is still in there because Mick Gatto got involved,” she said.
“I remember sitting in there when Mick rang and he said you’ve got to take care of [the ex-partner]”.
“Next minute he’s [Mr Lennon] screaming at me to sign paperwork, and I lost my house.”
Mr Gatto said he knew the woman’s ex-partner and might have called Mr Lennon.
“If I rang up to say, look after him, you know, I might have done that,” he said.
Mr Lennon did not respond to detailed questions.
A spokesperson for the Legal Services Commissioner, Ms McLeay, did not answer detailed questions about Mr Lennon’s behaviour but insisted her office “takes any unethical conduct by lawyers that is brought to our attention very seriously”.
Complex complaints take time to investigate because evidence needs to be gathered and put to the lawyer, the spokesperson said.
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