LEGAL AFFAIRS:

The Bug’s finance and investment columnist Morrie Bezzle (main picture) says he will fight charges brought against him under consumer protection laws for allegedly misrepresenting himself as a lawyer.

Morrison Edison Ponzi Phar Lap Bezzle, age and address unknown, pleaded not guilty to a range of charges during a brief committal hearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court this morning.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Lewis Terry said the charges were laid after hundreds of complaints were received from people who had responded to a series of allegedly misleading radio advertisements featuring Mr Bezzle in which he “wrongly and illegally held himself out to be a person with an intimate knowledge of the legal system”.

“People who heard the advertisements and engaged Mr Bezzle to defend them in various courts on various matters quickly found he had no legal training whatsoever,” Sergeant Terry said.

“In fact in no case did Mr Bezzle actually turn up at any court to represent those who had paid him considerable amounts of money in legal fees.”

Sergeant Terry presented to the court handwritten scripts used by Mr Bezzle to record the radio advertisements.

“In the scripts which Mr Bezzle both wrote and spoke, he clearly describes himself as a barista and offers his services on a ‘no win, no free’ basis,” he said. “These scripts show an intention to deliberately mislead his clients.”

Presiding beak Madge E Strait granted bail and remanded Bezzle to appear again on a date to be fixed.

Outside the court Mr Bezzle lashed out at authorities who had brought the charges against him.

“I am an innocent victim of a conspiracy by crooked coppers and shiny-arsed bureaucrats who continue to smother brave entrepreneurs like me,” Mr Bezzle said.

“I’ve done nothing wrong. Everything I said in those ads was, to coin a Latin legal phrase, ridgy didge.”

Mr Bezzle vehemently rejected the prosecution’s central argument that he had misled clients about his knowledge of the legal system.

“You’ve all seen me here in court on numerous occasions,” he told reporters. “If anyone has an intimate knowledge of our legal system, it’s me. Every word is true.

“Same goes for the bit in my ads where I said I have a long record of successful convictions.”

Mr Bezzle refused to answer questions about the absence of his own usual legal adviser, colourful Sydney legal and racing identity Dickie Shearman, (below) who was himself recently convicted on similar charges after changing his name by deed poll to Dickie Shearman-Casey.

While walking away swiftly, Mr Bezzle said he would continue to conduct his own prosecution at future court hearings as Mr Shearman was “simply taking a break” at what he described as “a shared waterfront residential facility” at Long Bay in Sydney.

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