So why did a successful, experienced former judge keep lying like this? Whilst this type of question is not new we have asked it many times about executives, bankers, accountants and the like the idea that high profile, intelligent people can create webs of deceit, illusion or carelessness still troubles many of us. We ask are these individuals villains, fools or more accurately thought of as a bit of both?

Justice James of the NSW Supreme Court showed he considered Einfeld a villain. He found the lengthy statement Einfeld made to the police, which formed the basis of the charge of perverting justice, contained ''a number of knowingly false assertions''.

He accepted the prosecution's argument that Einfeld engaged in ''deliberate, premeditated perjury'' to avoid incurring demerit points on his drivers licence. He concluded Einfeld had engaged in ''planned criminal activity'' in implicating others in the issue of who had actually been driving the car.

It is true that once a lie is proven to have been made, a court will tend to infer it was deliberate. To do anything else would require courts to engage in cognitive explorations of a defendant's state of mind that they are just not equipped to do. Yet one is still left asking whether issues of knowledge are always as black and white as the judge's finding makes them seem? Are there not sometimes shades of grey around our decision making and our ''knowing'' that mean we may not always have acted as consciously and deliberately as this characterisation of Einfeld's behaviour would suggest?

The prosecution alleged Einfeld's main motive for lying was to avoid loosing demerit points on his licence. Yet on the facts it would seem more likely that Einfeld lied initially to protect his reputation (which he has now lost). As cognitive psychology has shown, acting out of self-interest is a common and automatic egocentric default in our thinking.

Like many high achievers, Einfeld possibly struggled with admitting he made mistakes, even to himself. Having spent many years enforcing criminal laws, he may have found it hard to admit he had broken the same laws he had upheld.

He may also not have consciously acknowledged at the start that what he was doing in denying the offence was wrong. Highly successful people often see themselves as competent, deserving and moral, and this view obstructs their ability to recognise the errors they make.

However, although this may have been the case when Einfeld was initially confronted with the offence of speeding, once he continued to compound the lies in court, on television and with the police his self-delusion (if it ever existed) could no longer be argued as defensible. Probably motivated largely through fear of the consequences for his reputation, he made the childlike response of continuing to lie and burying himself further in stories he could not sustain.

Not surprisingly for someone with a previous remarkable career, now Einfeld has admitted he lied and is being sent to jail, he is looking to make sense of his actions. He told ABC's Four Corners recently he considered he was an honest man who made a mistake by lying. ''I don't think I'm the slightest bit dishonest. I just made a mistake.''

When one looks at Einfeld's demeanour as he says these words, it seems still hard thing for him to admit he lied.

Perhaps the idea that his behaviour was out of character helps explain to him the extraordinary events he caused to unfold. But we can only wonder whether the realities most of us live with that when we get ourselves into serious situations or do something wrong, we are best off admitting our mistakes and dealing with consequences have at last come home to him. If this is the case, let it be a warning to us all. Delusions of self-importance and self-interest are normal. Expecting everyone else to go along with them is not.

Kath Hall is a senior lecturer in law at the Australian National University's College of Law.