The website of Parish Patience lawyers informs clients of BItel's death. To those who had summoned the courage to detail the crimes they said Bitel had committed against them this was a case of justice delayed and then denied, even though in a committal hearing the court found there was sufficient evidence for a jury to convict. To the whistleblowers who made repeated complaints about Bitel to every legal authority they could think of over a number of years, it looked as though some elements of the legal profession had – at least tacitly – protected Bitel for so long that cancer took him before he could either clear his name or face prosecution. One of them, lawyer Mark Tarrant, observes bitterly that in his view Bitel has taken international law designed to protect the vulnerable and used it as a weapon against them. Bitel had scaled the heights of his profession. Over the course of his career he served as president of the Refugee Council of Australia, chairman of the Australian Refugee Foundation and the Refugee Advice and Casework Service, the secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (Australian Section) and a judicial member of the Equal Opportunity Division of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal. He was on the Law Society of NSW's Human Rights Committee.

In an article in the Law Society of NSW's journal David Bitel boasted of being "the father of Bangladeshi Australians". In an article celebrating him in the society's journal he boasts of being known as "the father of Bangladeshi Australians". In a video interview produced this year by a website for expatriate Bangladeshis, bddiaspora.com, Bitel is introduced as the "Westerner" who has become closest to the expatriate community in Australia. Died awaiting trial: David Bitel. Credit:Paul Harris In it Bitel speaks with startling clarity of his cancer and details how he became known for his success in having Australia recognise that persecution of homosexuality in Bangladesh was a cause for being accepted as a refugee.

"I actually acted for the first gay Bangladeshi in the world to be approved as a refugee in 1991, here in Australia ... on the basis of sexuality. Bitel's victims could be forgiven for thinking that the legal profession was cheering a lawyer-rapist on from the sidelines. Lawyer Mark Tarrant "That particular case was the first case in the world and it had some ramifications," he tells the interviewer. One of those ramifications, he says, is copycats – people claiming to be homosexual to secure permanent residency. Bitel's career and reputation grew through the 1990s and 2000s and he was to become the lead partner at the Sydney firm Parish Patience. But also over that period allegations about his behaviour began to surface and swirl through legal circles. In 2002 a client of Tarrant's confided that David Bitel had told him it was easy for Bangladeshis to secure permanent residency in Australia by falsely claiming to be facing persecution for being homosexual. Tarrant was disturbed by the story. It suggested a high-profile colleague was breaking the law.

In 2004 Tarrant heard another story about Bitel, this time from a New Zealand lawyer who Fairfax Media has interviewed. He told Tarrant he had come across claims Bitel had committed chilling crimes while in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city he often visited for work. Tarrant recommended he contact the Australian Federal Police. After writing to the AFP, the lawyer says, New Zealand police interviewed Bitel but nothing came of it. Fast forward to around 2007. One day Tarrant has lunch with another immigration lawyer, Brett Slater, who says one of his clients, a Nepalese man, tearfully told him he had been sexually assaulted by Bitel in his office. The client, whose name has been suppressed by a court order, eventually returned to Nepal after his bid for residency failed. The following year Tarrant made his own work trip to Dhaka and heard further rumours about Bitel's behaviour. He made a side trip to Kathmandu in an effort to find the Nepalese victim. On April 30, 2008, the two met in the outdoor area of a tourist hotel called the Yak and Yeti. The man again wept as he told Tarrant of Bitel's alleged assault and confirmed he wanted to pursue the matter. According to a statement which the lawyers later took to police, in 1995 Bitel led the man into his Sydney office and locked the door behind him.

"He quickly came very close to me, got down low, and opened the zip of my pants." Mr Bitel began performing oral sex. "I was stunned, I was wondering why he was doing this. I had never seen anything like this before in my life ... I was afraid ... I did not want him to do it ... I was crying. Tears were running down my face." The statement goes on to outline how the man backed away and the assault ended. In the following weeks Bitel made an application to the Refugee Review Tribunal on his behalf, falsely stating that he was a homosexual and faced persecution. He then instructed the man to give false evidence at his hearing. Back in Australia Tarrant and Slater came across a second Bitel client who told a similar story. He also cannot be named for legal reasons. In 2009 the second victim told Fairfax Media that Bitel told him during a meeting in his office that he could get him permanent residency if he said he was gay.

At a second meeting Bitel was more blunt, the man told Fairfax Media. "If you sleep with me you will get permanent residency," he said, blocking the door to his office. Bitel then grabbed his penis through his trousers before opening his fly and saying, "Can I give you a head job?" The man says he pushed him away and left. Meanwhile, concerned Bitel might pose a risk to other clients, Tarrant and Slater took their material to the police, who began an investigation. Slater gathered their evidence and presented it to the Law Society of NSW, the NSW Legal Services Commissioner, which handles complaints about lawyers in this state, and the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority, another federal government body. To the dismay of the two men Bitel was allowed to continue practising, while the police investigation proceeded slowly. Detectives asked Fairfax Media not to publish its information at the time for fear of disrupting their work. Slater and Tarrant understand that during the course of the investigation another Bitel client walked into a police station to level charges. Also in 2009 Fairfax Media interviewed another of Bitel's former clients, Pedro Rojas, whose allegations never became part of legal proceedings. Rojas went on to become a student at Macquarie University and eventually a university lecturer in his native Venezuela, but in 1992 he had been just another young man hoping Bitel could secure him a life in Australia. On about the fourth time they met, according to Rojas, Bitel threw an open manila envelope full of photographs onto the desk between them. Some spilled out and Rojas recalls being chilled.

"A few pictures came out from the envelope. I didn't touch them, I just saw a few pictures on the desk of a few boys, young kids on a boat and in a bedroom," Rojas told Fairfax Media. "He mentioned Thailand, Bangladesh and India. He said he goes often [on trips] and he do all these things ... He was on a bed and there were a few boys on the bed." Rojas said he was shocked and confused. "I was applying to stay in Australia. I was thinking, should I report this and then lose my residency?" Rojas said Bitel locked the door and told him, "If you don't want to pay for your case then you should do as I say." Bitel tried to grab him, Rojas pushed him away and fled. To this day he has never met the two lawyers who gathered evidence against Bitel, nor heard any other details about the case. Finally in 2012 Bitel was charged. But Tarrant and Slater are disappointed that until the day he died, Bitel remained registered to practise in NSW.

"Bitel's victims could be forgiven for thinking that the legal profession was cheering a lawyer-rapist on from the sidelines," says Tarrant. He notes that despite the raft of charges laid in December 2012 the Law Council of Australia allowed his firm to sponsor a cocktail party for delegates of its immigration law conference at NSW Parliament House in March 2014. Bitel was included in the 2014-15 Best Australian Lawyers list, a brand owned by a New York company and published each year by The Australian Financial Review, which is also published by Fairfax Media. Those on the list were nominated by their peers. Two months after his arrest Bitel was a guest at a fundraiser at the University of NSW for ActionAid Australia, a charity that has helped vulnerable Bangladeshi children. Tarrant was also a guest, but left in disgust when he saw Bitel was present. As recently as Thursday evening at a conference for the International Bar Association in Washington, DC, a toast was held for David Bitel, who, it was said, had had a "troubled" few years. There was no mention of his alleged victims.

Asked by Fairfax Media if it had failed to take action against Bitel, the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner declined to comment. Via a statement, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority rejected the suggestion that any complaints had not been acted upon properly. "Any allegation that relates to sexual assault is a matter for police investigation. Criminal charges take precedence over registration matters," it said. "OMARA does not have the power to suspend an agent while an investigation is ongoing and before specific findings have been made." A spokeswoman for ActionAid said the fundraiser which Bitel attended was arranged by an independent fundraising arm. The Law Council said via a spokesman that Bitel's firm "Parish Patience was a minor sponsor of the 2014 Immigration Law Conference, where the firm sponsored the opening reception. "Given concerns over the accusations against Mr Bitel, Parish Patience's request for sponsorship was referred to the Chair of the Professional Ethics Committee prior to the event.

"The firm's sponsorship request was accepted as the allegations were against an individual from the firm, rather than the firm itself. "The Law Council regrets any distress that may have been caused due to the firm's sponsorship." The Council is reviewing its sponsorship procedures. After speaking with Fairfax Media in 2009 Rojas sent an email which read in part, "I feel bad for not speaking at that time when the incident happened, but when you are a foreigner trying to succeed, one's mind ignores the damages due to thinking that he had the power back then to get rid of you by cancelling your visa. "Those pictures that flew out of the envelope onto his desk, I have never forgotten them. It's like it was yesterday. That was worse than when he tried to grab me and locked the door."