Troubled solicitor Ioannides struck off

A FORMER Gold Coast solicitor turned drug trafficker, who is currently serving a jail term, will be struck off as a lawyer.

The Legal Services Commissioner successfully prosecuted Briana Ioannides for professional misconduct, after she was convicted of serious drug trafficking offences.

In April, 2019, Ioannides was sentenced in the Supreme Court to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, after she was convicted of more than 40 drug offences, including supplying and possessing dangerous drugs.

Ioannides continued to commit offences after being charged and while she was on bail, including drug offences and breaching her bail undertaking.

The former solicitor with Gold Coast law firm Gatenby Lawyers ran a wholesale drug business and assisted others to set up drug trafficking businesses with clientele.

She disguised the size of the business through her communications, and had debts owing to her totalling as much as $268,200.

On December 20, 2018, Ioannides pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Queensland to a nine-count indictment in relation to offences committed in 2015.

In March, last year, she pleaded guilty to another 14 charges, including trafficking in methylamphetamine and GHB for about five months in 2016.

She was trafficking at both a wholesale and retail level, the court heard. On April 16, last year, she was convicted and sentenced with a parole eligibility date of February 20, 2021.

Ioannides was admitted as a lawyer in October, 2014 and 13 months later surrendered her practising certificate to the Queensland Law Society, after her arrest.

She did not contest the disciplinary charges and appeared from jail via video link.