Michael Lawler monthly $10,000 deal for David Rofe protege off

A deal by Michael Lawler for monthly $10,000 payments to an unemployed solicitor has come to an abrupt end.

David Rofe QC and Kathy Jackson. Source: Flickr account of Robert Horder.

An extraordinary behind-the-scenes deal put in place by Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler to provide monthly $10,000 payments to an unemployed solicitor using the funds of a wealthy Sydney barrister has come to an abrupt end.

The financial manager controlling the $30 million fortune of elderly barrister David Rofe QC, who has advanced dementia, has told Nick Llewellyn payments he received for his upkeep from Mr Rofe’s bank account have ceased.

In a short email, Robert Horder informed Mr Llewellyn that last month’s instalment was the last. “As a result, no further payments will be made to you.”

Mr Lawler, engulfed in controversy over his involvement in the legal battles of his disgraced partner Kathy Jackson and Mr Rofe during long periods of sick leave on full pay, originally put the monthly arrangement in place for Mr Llewellyn in June 2013.

At the time, Mr Lawler was helping the ailing Mr Rofe with his finances.

He kickstarted the $10,000 payments for Mr Llewel­lyn and kept them going. Mr Lawler ceased helping Mr Rofe with his finances in August last year, but the $10,000 payments rolled on. Despite no official ­involve­ment since, Mr Lawler has remained ­active in Mr Rofe’s life.

Ms Jackson is named in one of the 83-year-old’s wills as potential beneficiary of a $3m inheritance.

Justification for the $10,000 payments to Mr Llewellyn has been a matter of dispute since they started, and coincided with a battle for control of Mr Rofe’s ­fortune first reported by The Australian in February.

The payments were meant to be conditional on Mr Llewellyn — who claims to be Mr Rofe’s ­“virtual son, dependent and close friend” — visiting Mr Rofe at his home in Sydney’s east at least four times a week.

According to a power of att­orney Mr Lawler held for Mr Rofe, Mr Llewellyn was meant to spend more than two hours on each occasion with Mr Rofe and provide tasks including “companionship”. The conditions have not been met since at least late last year, when Mr Llewellyn was told not to visit Mr Rofe.

Another practical difficulty has been distance. Since February, Mr Llewellyn has been living on Queensland’s Gold Coast in a $1.2m luxury apartment — under an arrangement also set up for him by Mr Lawler last year under a separate part of the June 2013 deal to use Mr Rofe’s money to ­assist Mr Llewellyn in buying a home. This apartment deal for Mr Llewellyn is also hotly disputed, and another key component at risk of being cancelled.

Mr Lawler bought the Q1 apartment at Surfers Paradise in June last year in Mr Rofe’s name, despite Mr Llewellyn’s hope he would be handed the ownership title. Mr Llewellyn then made a private lease arrangement with Mr Rofe that permitted him to stay at the property for 20 years with a fixed rent of $1 a month — a total of $240 over two decades.

A three-year battle involving Mr Lawler, Ms Jackson and Mr Llewellyn has seen millions of Mr Rofe’s wealth spent on property purchases, lawyers and expert medical advice related to his ­deteriorating health that some critics have branded “doctor-shopping”.

A group of old Rofe friends say they remain worried about the elderly barrister’s welfare and big spending on his behalf, but feel frozen out.

Mr Lawler and Ms Jackson were originally on Mr Llewellyn’s side when the couple became ­immersed in Mr Rofe’s affairs in late 2012, at Mr Llewellyn’s urging. Mr Llewellyn had a bitter ­falling out with the couple when he found out Mr Lawler had used $1.35m of Mr Rofe’s funds in June last year to buy a house in Mr Rofe’s name at Wombarra, 65km south of Sydney, next to the home owned by Mr Lawler and Ms Jackson.

Relations became worse when Mr Llewellyn learned that Mr Lawler bought the $1.2m apartment intended as his residence in Mr Rofe’s name — not in Mr ­Llewellyn’s name as he wanted.

Mr Llewellyn claimed Ms Jackson had “superseded” him in Mr Rofe’s life.

The Llewellyn feud with Mr Lawler and Ms Jackson has not improved since the couple moved into Mr Rofe’s house in February after a small fire damaged their own. Mr Lawler has supported the idea that Mr Llewellyn should not visit Mr Rofe.

Mr Lawler and Ms Jackson have paid $1100 a week rent to Mr Rofe that was covered by their home insurance company until the end of July during repairs to their own home. At some stages, they have been behind in rent payments.

They have been shifting back to their own home in recent weeks.

The Australian reported this month that Mr Lawler and Ms Jackson had decided to tell the story of their troubled lives to the ABC’s Four Corners.

On September 9, when Mr Rofe visited the couple at the rented Wombarra house he owns, in the company of his nurses, a Four Corners film crew took extensive footage. Mr Rofe was interviewed with Mr Lawler and Ms Jackson.

Mr Lawler faces calls to resign from his $435,000 semi-judicial job, and a possible vote of both houses of parliament to remove him, following allegations of ­misbehaviour as a Fair Work judge, as well as criticism of the large amounts of private business he appears to have conducted while on sick leave at taxpayer ­expense.

Ms Jackson, who shot to prominence for exposing jailed union fraudster Michael Williamson, was ordered in August to pay $1.4m after the Federal Court found this amount was missing after a systemic rort when she was a senior official with the Health Services Union.

She has since filed for bankruptcy, raising doubts the money will be repaid. Other potential ­difficulties ahead relate to a criminal investigation by Victoria Police and the AFP into Ms Jackson’s HSU spending. An ally of Ms Jackson, Marco Bolano, is also under police investigation.

On Friday, lawyers assisting the royal commission into union corruption reinforced the recent Federal Court ruling by saying they had concluded Ms Jackson had stolen $1.4m of HSU funds.

The upkeep arrangement Mr Lawler put in place for Mr Llew­ellyn in June 2013 also included using Rofe funds to wipe out $150,000 of Mr Llewellyn’s credit card debts.

Before this 2013 power-of-­attorney arrangement, Mr Rofe had paid Mr Llewellyn’s rent and credit card debts — but it was done on an informal, ad hoc basis.

Mr Horder told Mr Llewellyn in his September 15 email, ­obtained by The Australian, that the $10,000 payments had ceased.

In a reply email to Mr Horder, Mr Llewellyn said he deserved “proper justification” for the cut-off. “You know full well this was not David’s true intentions,” he wrote.

With Mr Llewellyn unemployed, it is not clear from where he will derive his future income or how he will afford household bills at the Q1 apartment. He claims to have put aside his career to help Mr Rofe in past years.

Mr Rofe lives at his eastern suburbs Woollahra home with fulltime nursing care. He was not available for comment.