Disgraced lawyer Tim Meehan out of prison and hungry to get back in court

A day before pleading guilty to serious offences, former star lawyer Tim Meehan updated Facebook with a message.

Xanthe Larcombe-Weate and Tim Meehan.

A day before pleading guilty to ­serious offences of fraud and falsifying records, high profile Queensland defence lawyer Tim Meehan updated Facebook with a message: “I’ll be back.”

True to his word, Meehan has reappeared, smiling in photos on social media, after being quietly released on parole last month.

He had served 18 months of a 5½-year prison sentence and is now awaiting a ruling on whether he can pick up the pieces of his once soaring legal career.

While Meehan starts a new life post-conviction, the pain is just beginning for some former colleagues, with his own allegations against one-time partners sparking a major, ongoing legal scandal.

Meehan spent most of his time behind bars in general population at the high-security Woodford Correctional Centre, 80km north of Brisbane. He is understood to have kept fellow inmates onside by helping them with legal advice.

He was released into the arms of Xanthe Larcombe-Weate, who was a law clerk at his former firm. Their relationship survived his prison term and from posts on social media accounts appears to have blossomed. Flowers arrived on her birthday in August — daffodils, her favourite.

“A special thank you to my red headed man for a wonderful surprise sent to my work today. ­Absolutely made my day,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.

After his release, she wrote that she had spent Christmas Day “with my favourite red head” and posted a photo of them together.

A holiday at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast followed a couple of weeks ago. Both are jiu-jitsu devotees who have been training in the inner-city suburb of Milton since his return.

Meehan’s clients had included the state’s most reviled prisoner, Brett Cowan, who abducted and murdered 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe on the Sunshine Coast in 2003. In August 2016, Meehan was sacked from Bosscher Lawyers. The following month the prominent legal firm accused him in a Supreme Court civil claim of taking clients’ money and depositing it in his own accounts.

A month after his dismissal, he approached the Crime and Corruption Commission, telling investigators he and two other men at his law firm received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash without recording it.

They were allegedly avoiding tax and bankruptcy obligations.

A major investigation by the CCC has since rocked the legal fraternity, with a bevy of high-profile lawyers charged and still to face court. Others almost certainly remain in the sights of investigators.

Meehan pleaded guilty to aggravated fraud and eight counts of falsifying records and was sentenced in July 2017. His admissions sealed his fate but were also a major factor in him now putting the past behind him.

Ms Larcombe-Weate was not charged.

“Your admissions largely relate to matters the investigators did not know about and could not know about,” judge Roslyn Atkinson said at Meehan’s sentencing.

“So the charges against you are based in no small part on what you told investigators. That is very much to your credit.”

The Legal Services Commissioner wants him removed from the Queensland roll of solicitors.

However, Meehan has asked the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal to allow him to stay on the roll, citing his co-operation with Queensland Law Society investigations into “certain practitioners”.

QCAT president judge Martin Daubney reserved his decision.

Meehan said last night said: “I’m just trying as best as I can to get on with life.”