Broome Aboriginal Legal Service WA lawyers Paul Tobin and Mitchell Donaldson charged by police

A pair of lawyers who work together in Broome were yesterday arrested for alleged unlawful conduct relating to a number of court cases in the Kimberley. Major Crime Division detectives charged Aboriginal Legal Service WA lawyers Paul Tobin, 38, and Mitchell Donaldson, 30, with attempt to pervert the course of justice. A statement by WA Police said the charges related to a number of complaints that involved witnesses to criminal investigations to court proceedings between 2017 and 2019. The statement said a search warrant of the pair’s office was executed after their arrest. Police refused to comment further on the incident. The two men have represented the same clients together on a number of occasions at Broome Courthouse. Mr Tobin is the former coach of the Peninsula Bombers side in the West Kimberley Football League, which is largely made up of Indigenous men from communities along the Dampier Peninsula, about 130km north of Broome. He is understood to be the most senior lawyer at the Broome-based branch. Mr Donaldson had shared a post to his Twitter on Sunday about the over representation of Indigenous Australians in adult prisons, compared to African Americans in the United States. He was photographed by The West Australian alongside a number of co-workers at the White Ribbon Gala ball in Broome in November, which raised funds for different anti-domestic violence organisations in the Kimberley town. The Federal Government-funded ALSWA provides legal services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders across the State and was established in the 1970s to address shortages in access to advice for Indigenous people. It has 12 regional offices in WA that provide criminal and family law, civil and human rights law work services free of charge. ALSWA states on its website that it has been “striving for justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in WA for over 30 years.” The organisation was contacted for comment. Mr Tobin and Mr Donaldson are both due to appear in Broome Magistrate’s Court on Monday.