Tasmanian Supreme Court judge pleads guilty to breaching AVO
A Supreme Court judge has admitted to committing a criminal offence in NSW just weeks after he was found guilty of assault and emotional abuse in his home state.
A Tasmanian Supreme Court judge has pleaded guilty to breaching an apprehended violence order while visiting Sydney last year.
Justice Gregory Peter Geason, 63, was charged with three counts of knowingly contravening a restriction specified in an AVO in November this year.
He was visiting Sydney when he allegedly breached the court order.
On Friday, the Battery Point resident pleaded guilty to one count of breaching a restriction specified in an AVO.
The two remaining charges were dismissed without a plea.
Justice Geason had been set to fight the charges in a four day hearing in February next year.
However, those dates were vacated when he entered a guilty plea on Friday.
The 63-year-old will instead be sentenced in the NSW Local Court on December 13 over the AVO breach.
The guilty plea comes only weeks after he was found guilty of assaulting and emotionally abusing a woman in Hobart Magistrates Court.
Magistrate Susan Wakeling found Justice Geason had shaken the woman, struck her in the chest and pushed her forcefully, which caused her to fall back and hit her head.
She also found he had subjected the woman to emotional abuse or intimidation over a seven-month period, including by tracking her movements and pressuring her to sign a contract.
The Tasmanian Supreme Court judge will be sentenced for the offences on November 14.
He is the first Tasmanian judge in 200 years to be charged with criminal offences.
The 63-year-old was appointed to the Tasmanian Supreme Court in November 2017 after practising law for nearly 40 years.
He has been on leave from his duties since early November last year and has given a written undertaking not to exercise any of the powers of a judge until the matters are resolved.