A senior lawyer with more than 30 years of good conduct has been convicted of driving with excess breath alcohol and, only three weeks later, of driving while suspended.

David Fordyce went before the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal this month after being convicted of the two imprisonable offences.

In the tribunal’s recently-released decision, it said that a few months before Fordyce’s drink-driving and driving while suspended charges, he had also failed to stop in response to a police car activating its lights.

He had turned into his driveway and told the officer he had not understood he had been asked to stop.

Fordyce, currently working for the Ministry for Primary Industries, then walked away from the officer and was subsequently charged with failing to stop, which he admitted.

Following the latter two offences, Fordyce, in his late 60s, and with no prior professional disciplinary history, “promptly and responsibly, drew attention to the fact he had two convictions for imprisonable offences”.

Canterbury-Westland Standards Committee charged him with alternative disciplinary offences, the most serious being misconduct, arguing that Fordyce’s convictions “tends to bring his profession into disrepute”.

The tribunal, which heard the disciplinary charges, found that Fordyce had been punished by the District Court and it was “no surprise” there was no real risk of actual imprisonment.

“Nor is it any surprise that he has subsequently been issued with another practising certificate.

“These matters do not call into question his fitness to practise. We are obliged to deal with the professional disciplinary response in a proportionate manner.”

In determining whether it was misconduct or the lesser unsatisfactory conduct, the standards committee argued the conviction of driving with excess breath alcohol was succeeded by one of “flagrant disobedience” of the suspension weeks later.

“Mr Fordyce cannot escape the finding that he had chosen to disobey a lawful restriction on driving,” it said.

Fordyce’s counsel Costas Matsis submitted that if it were understood his client’s behaviour was a temporary lapse against a background of decades of lawful compliance, the profession would not tend to be brought into disrepute.

The tribunal found it was a matter of misconduct, stating that had Fordyce been convicted of only drink-driving, “it could be argued that the public might shrug and think he had made an error”.

“What elevates this case is the exacerbating feature of the subsequent offence of driving while suspended. Albeit at the lower end of the continuum of circumstances that can be said to tend to bring the profession into disrepute.”

In censuring Fordyce and fining him $3000, the tribunal accepted his offending occurred within a discrete few months, that it was the product of personal issues he had at that period, and that he had never been impaired by alcohol at work.

“He is a man of mature years who has no previous issues of relevance. He did not pursue an application for name suppression and suffers the embarrassment of this matter being aired in public proceedings.

“He receives the imposition of a censure which is a significant penalty in itself.”

Fordyce was also ordered to pay costs of $6973.07 and to reimburse the tribunal costs of $2157 that the New Zealand Law Society was obliged to pay.

A LinkedIn account for Fordyce stated he was an experienced senior solicitor with a demonstrated history of working in the government administration industry, coming from a criminal law background.

He did not respond to NZME’s request for comment.

Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.