Suspended trustee relieved of remaining estates

It might seem like trustees in good standing with Tim Beresford are thin on the ground but unless the Inspector General in Bankruptcy (IGB) intends to further burden the Official Trustee’s workforce then Beresford will soon be farming out a swathe of estates to private practitioners thanks to Justice Darren Jackson of the West Australian division of the Federal Court.

“…. her client’s position was that he consented to his removal as trustee, but that he did not accept the allegations made against him in Ms Chiverall’s affidavit, although he would not be putting on any responsive evidence.” Justice Darren Jackson.

Earlier this month the judge ruled on an application commenced by the IGB in December 2025 seeking orders for the preservation and production of documents relating to 211 sequestered estates to which Ross Stephen Thomson had been appointed as trustee in bankruptcy.

That application came almost six months after the IGB issued the Perth-based practitioner with a direction to refrain from accepting any new appointments.

After commencing the preservation and production proceedings an application for orders removing Thomson as trustee was subsequently added, which we should say Thomson consented to.

We need however to go back to 2024, when Thomson had a falling with his then business partner, Andrew Bell of the Bankruptcy Advisory Centre located in the generally solvent suburb of Subiaco to understand how we arrived at the orders made earlier this month by Justice Jackson and outlined in Inspector-General in Bankruptcy v Thomson [2026] FCA 982.

According to the judgment the falling out had the effect of preventing Thomson from accessing bank accounts and other electronically-accessed systems and information that were essential for the proper conduct of the estates.

Although Thomson continued to work at BAC, “albeit under strained circumstances” as Justice Jackson helpfully pointed out, Bell allegedly sought consents from potential replacement trustees and while he was at it removed Thomson as a director of BAC in December 2024.

Justice Jackson’s judgment provides no detail on how the IGB became aware of Thomson’s difficulties but material put before the court by the Australian Financial Security Authority’s (AFSA) acting National Manager, Education, Integrity and Enforcement Paula Chiverall alludes to issues suggesting the conduct of the files had not been up to scratch even before Thomson was cut off from BAC’s systems.

“…. at the hearing, I asked the solicitor for the first respondent (Thomson) whether her client contested any of the evidence set out in Ms Chiverall’s affidavit regarding the administration of the bankrupt estates,” the judge said.

“The matter was briefly stood down to allow her time to take instructions, and although she was unable to obtain instructions within that time, she confirmed that her client’s position was that he consented to his removal as trustee, but that he did not accept the allegations made against him in Ms Chiverall’s affidavit, although he would not be putting on any responsive evidence.

“I therefore decided the matter on the basis that the evidence in the affidavit was not admitted to be true by the first respondent, but that he advanced no specific matter to contradict it.”

The whole, unhappy affair would seem to spell the end for Thomson’s career which according to his profile began in 1987 in the Office of the Registrar in Bankruptcy where he “he meticulously handled applications from individuals seeking bankruptcy and conducted thorough audits of returns submitted by Registered Trustees to ensure the accurate payment of taxes”. Quite.

In 1989 he transitioned to what was then known as the Official Receivers Office before it transitioned – word of the moment really – to AFSA.

Apparently whilst with AFSA Thomson was a member of something called the “vital Bankruptcy Regulation Section (BRU)” where he performed “compliance audits on all Western Australian Trustees, including both Registered and Official Trustees”.

According to the material put before Justice Jackson Thomson had told Bell around the time of their falling out that he intended to retire.

Seemingly he had a perfect excuse for getting the affairs of 211 bankrupts in order without incurring the wrath of Beresford the Redeemer. Thomson really should have seen this coming.