Hit-and-run driver Eugene McGee should be banned from practising law, to boost public confidence in the legal profession, independent senator Nick Xenophon says.
McGee killed cyclist Ian Humphrey in Adelaide 2003, left the scene and arranged his legal representation before turning himself into police six hours later.
Last year the South Australian Legal Practitioners Conduct Board decided not to punish him, and the decision caused a huge public outcry.
The state's attorney-general John Rau said there was nothing he could do, but Senator Xenophon now says McGee should not be working as a lawyer.
"For a whole range of reasons, including public confidence in the legal profession, I don't think Mr McGee should be practising," he will tell ABC television's Australian Story on Monday night.
"He should at the very least be suspended for a significant period of time."
During the program, McGee describes the affair as an "unmitigated disaster" for everyone involved.
"Certainly for my family, clearly for Mr Humphrey's family and for all people associated with Mr Humphrey," he says.
"It's a tragedy for everybody involved and the effects are ongoing for everybody involved."
McGee's psychiatrist, Sandy McFarlane, says McGee was himself once the victim of a hit-and-run accident and this may have influenced how he responded to the collision.
"He was riding his bicycle to university when he was hit by an elderly woman," the professor says.
"He sustained a significant back injury but chose not to prosecute her."
McGee apologised during the first part of the program last week to Mr Humphrey's widow, Di Gilcrist-Humphrey, and her two daughters.
They said they had never had an apology face to face.
McGee was not tested for alcohol after the crash and was later fined $3100 for driving without due care.
The case sparked a royal commission that investigated how police had handled the matter and led to conspiracy charges being laid against McGee and his brother, Craig.
Both were eventually acquitted of those charges.
Front page
RSS Feed