A lawyer has been banned for nine months after he sent a series of ‘bizarre and disgusting’ emails to female colleagues detailing his sexually explicit foot fetish.
Perth-based John Abou Haidar started practising law in 2018, and started sending perverted emails to shocked co-workers 18 months later.
He sent the first one in September, 2019, writing to female and male colleagues about his fantasies.
‘Have you ever had an orgasm – from a male – licking the bottom of your feet (softly to make you laugh, firmly to make you feel empowered) – sucking your toes – licking the gap in between your toes,’ he wrote.
Just a week later, in an email to another female lawyer, Abou Haidar, who admitted to having a ‘submissive sexual nature’, wrote that he felt like a ‘male prostitute’.
A lawyer has been banned for nine months after he sent a series of ‘bizarre and disgusting’ emails to female colleagues detailing his sexually explicit foot fetish (stock image)
Complaints were then made about him to the Legal Services and Complaints Committee (LSCC), the West Australian reported.
In his response, Abou Haidar said ‘I have a foot fetish and a very submissive sexual nature. I do not hide from this’.
Despite admitting his fetish, he apologised and said he had ‘learnt the importance of keeping my inner monologue private’.
But Abou Haidar sent another email to lawyers just a day later with more details of his sexual compulsions.
‘I imagined you dominating me and using my mouth as an ashtray,’ he wrote.
‘I liked to perve at your heels and fantasised many times that you would trample me under them.’
When more emails were reported to the LPCC, Abou Haidar said he was embarrassed, ashamed, remorseful, stressed, depressed and lonely.
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John Abou Haidar started practising law in 2018, and started sending perverted emails to shocked co-workers 18 months later. A mock-up of one of his emails is pictured
The WA State Administrative Tribunal (SAT), which ruled on his fitness to practise law, said his emails were ‘both bizarre and disgusting’.
During the disciplinary hearings, Abou Haidar agreed that at the time of sending the messages, he was unfit to practise law.
A psychiatric report into him found that his behaviour happened ‘in the context of psychiatric illness and abuse of alcohol and cannabis’.
‘His judgment at the time of sending the emails was notably impaired via a combination of his depressed mood and his use of cannabis as a form of self-medication as well as his use of excessive amounts of alcohol on a daily basis.’
The LSCC found him guilty of professional misconduct and said his messages would be regarded ‘as disgraceful and dishonourable by practitioners of good repute’.
It was also found that he made ‘grossly explicit and sexually demeaning comments about’ a female legal practitioner.
A psychiatric report found his behaviour happened ‘in the context of psychiatric illness and abuse of alcohol and cannabis’
The SAT banned Abou Haidar from practising law for nine months from March, 2023 and ordered him to pay costs of $5,000.
‘His conduct was undoubtedly disrespectful, highly offensive and embarrassing to those about whom he was speaking and to others who received his communications,’ the ruling said.
‘His repetition of the offensive comments and the trivialising of his conduct in his response to the committee’s communications with him, and his failure to meaningfully respond to their communication, was also extremely inappropriate.’
Abou Haidar will be allowed to practise law in Western Australia again in December.
