High-profile Brisbane criminal solicitor Tim Meehan, who represented Daniel Morcombe's killer Brett Peter Cowan, has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail for fraud but will be eligible for parole in December 2018.
The 41-year-old's sentencing hearing began on Thursday in the Supreme Court in Brisbane after he last month pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated fraud and eight counts of fraudulently falsifying records.
Meehan's public profile grew through his defence of Cowan in 2014 and subsequent appeals.
The fraud charges stemmed from a Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission investigation into a law firm.
The court was told 19 clients were asked to pay fees in cash, which were not deposited into the firm's trust fund as required by law.
The crown prosecution said more than $600,000 could have been involved in the overall scheme and Meehan may have pocketed up to $500,000.
In sentencing today, Justice Roslyn Atkinson, who also presided over Cowan's murder trial, said Meehan's offending fed the "public perception lawyers were greedy and self serving".
"The only apparent motivation ... was personal enrichment, that is deliberate behaviour to maintain a high level of income," Justice Atkinson said.
"Your conduct has brought you into disrepute but it also brings the legal profession into disrepute."
Meehan, who has been in custody since last month, has surrendered his practising certificate and is unlikely to ever work again as a lawyer.
The prosecution had recommended Meehan be sentenced to seven years in jail.
Outside court, Meehan's lawyer Kristy Bell said her client accepted the sentence.
"Mr Meehan is remorseful and that remorse is demonstrated by the expeditious way in which this mater has proceeded through the courts," she said.
"Importantly he makes no excuse, he takes full responsibility for his role in the offending and the sentence imposed by her honour is appropriately a significant one having regard to the circumstances of the matter."
