Director of Public Prosecutions v Thompson (a pseudonym)

[2025] VCC 1154

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

GENERAL LIST

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

SAMUEL THOMPSON (A PSEUDONYM)

---

JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE HOGAN
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF PLEA HEARING:	4 August 2025
DATE OF SENTENCE:	14 August 2025
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Thompson (a pseudonym)
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2025] VCC 1154

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
---

Subject:CRIMINAL LAW

Catchwords:              Pleas of guilty to two charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception, three charges of theft and one charge of obtaining property by deception – three charges were continuing criminal enterprise offences – offender conducted business in car sales and obtained finance for car sales – offending involved dishonesty compromising a total of six charges involving $590,000 committed sporadically over a period of 2 years and 3 months – delay of some 5 years before offender was interviewed by police in 2021 – further delay of 4 years before plea hearing – complex factual scenario requiring significant investigation by police – early plea of guilty in all the circumstances with high utilitarian value – some remorse – prior good character and no subsequent offending – good prospects of rehabilitation

Legislation Cited:      Sentencing Act 1991

Cases Cited:R v Arundell [2003] VSCA 69, R v Grossi [2008] 23 VR 500, Abela v The Queen [2014] VSCA 266

Sentence: 24 months’ imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 6 months – s 6AAA declaration of 5 ½ years’ imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 3 years and 8 months

---

APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the DPP	Mr M Cookson	Solicitor for the Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Offender	Mr S Tovey	Fayman Lawyers

HER HONOUR:

1Samuel Thompson,[1] you have pleaded guilty to two charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, three charges of theft and one charge of obtaining property by deception.  Three of these charges, namely Charges 1, 3 and 6, are continuing criminal enterprise offences, which have a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment.[2]  The remaining charges, namely Charges 2, 4 and 5, each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.

[1]        A pseudonym.

[2]The maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment for these offences is doubled pursuant to s 6I of the Sentencing Act 1991.

2The circumstances of your offending are summarised in the prosecution opening.[3] 

[3]Exhibit “A”.

3Your offending occurred over a 2-year, 3-month period from September 2014 to December 2016.  During this period, you were working selling cars and arranging finance for purchasers of cars and you were the director of various companies, particularly Cars National Pty Ltd (“Cars National”).  You had worked from March 2007 to July 2008 in a Mazda car dealership in Mornington.  You were approached by your co-accused, Michael Toretto[4] (“Toretto”) to come and work in his business, which involved several legal entities involved in the car industry, collectively known as Automotive Fleet Management (“AFM”).  You worked as a sales consultant for AFM from July 2008 to November 2009, but then returned to the Mazda dealership in Mornington, where you worked from November 2009 to July 2010.  Cars National was incorporated in the second half of 2010, when you commenced working under that name.  Toretto’s business, AFM, had been deregistered by this stage.  Over the dates of offending, you and Toretto engaged in various forms of dishonesty in the course of procuring cars for clients and finance for those cars.  The victims of your offending were either your clients or the finance entities to whom you made application on behalf of clients.

[4]        A pseudonym.

4Charge 1, obtaining a financial advantage by deception, which is a continuing criminal enterprise offence, involved you offending on 17 September 2014 by dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage, namely, the payment of $207,000 from ANZ Bank Esanda Finance.  The application for finance purported to be on behalf of a client, C Winter Holdings Pty Ltd. in relation to a new concrete truck for that business.  The application was supported by a false letter purporting to be from the Commonwealth Bank (“CBA”) dated 8 September and signed by Christian Anthony Federigo (who had ceased working for the CBA in May 2012 and had no knowledge of the letter, and nor did your client, Mr Winter).  The letter falsely represented that Mr Winter’s current concrete truck was not encumbered by any interest of the CBA, when in fact there was an outstanding amount of $63,407.37 on a loan relating to it.  The ANZ checklist was personally signed by you and included a tick next to the declaration that all information provided was true and correct.  The application was approved by ANZ Esanda Finance, which transferred the amount of $207,000 into Cars National’s account.  Those moneys were then used by you to reduce the balance of that account, which was overdrawn.

5Your client, Mr Winter, was frustrated by the amount of time that was passing, yet he had still not taken delivery of his vehicle.  Mr Collins of Westar Truck Centre, which was supplying the new vehicle for Mr Winter, advised that it was ready on 15 December 2014.  You made false representations to Mr Collins that you were working on settlement and, also, to your client, when you well knew that the finance obtained for the truck had already been applied to reduce the overdraft of your business.  Ultimately, Mr Winter did receive the truck he had paid for as a result of offending by your co-offender, Toretto, not yourself.  At the plea hearing, the prosecutor, Mr Cookson, told the court that Westar Truck Centre, which supplied the truck, never received the $207,000 to which it was entitled.  However, in further written submissions[5], which were received after the conclusion of the hearing, your counsel, Mr Tovey, advised that, ultimately, legal proceedings had been taken against Cars National by Paterson Cheney (of which Westar Trucks was a subsidiary) and the debt was paid in full.  The prosecution agree that this is so, but there is no documentation before the court as to when such payment was made.

[5]        MFI-2 – “Further submissions on behalf of the accused” dated 11 August 2025, paras [2], [3] and [4(a)].

6Charge 2, obtaining a financial advantage by deception, was committed by you on 4 June 2015.  This involved you submitting a false application to Westpac Bank Capital Finance for a loan of $30,000, purporting to be for the purchase of a 2007 Mercedes Benz in the name of your wife.  You utilised the identifying details of a Mercedes Benz registered to a Mr Mat Dulabic, whom it seems had spoken to Toretto, who had expressed interest in buying the vehicle.  However, Mr Dulabic never did sell it to Cars National, and it was never registered to Toretto, yourself nor your wife, and there was no entry relating to it in Cars National’s LCMT dealers’ book.  The finance application contained a deed allegedly signed by your wife and witnessed by Toretto, and you were listed as the introducer and signed the application in that capacity.  The application was fraudulent, in that there had never been any agreement to purchase Mr Dulabic’s Mercedes, no purchase price had been agreed upon, and your wife never had possession or ownership of it so it could never have provided security for the loan sought in the application.  The application was approved and Capital Finance released $30,000 to Cars National’s bank account.  Following the offending, a false entry was created in Cars National’s MYOB records, suggesting that a payment had been made to Mr Dulabic on 5 June 2015 for $30,000.

7Payments on the loan were initially being debited to a joint account of you and your wife, but some three years later Capital Finance took steps by engaging Mr Bruce Morey to either secure the remainder of the payments or return the relevant vehicle.  In discussions with Mr Morey in August, September and October 2019, you told him that the balance of the loan had been paid, but payment did not go through.  You never revealed that the vehicle had never been in your possession, or owned or purchased by you.  Ultimately, it seems that repayments of approximately $25,000 were made.  In his further written submissions, Mr Tovey advised that 36 scheduled payments were made between 6 July 2015 and 3 November 2017 and the balance of $5,000 had been “forgiven by the lender Westpac” at some time during 2019 (some four years after the offending).[6]  The prosecution agree with these further submissions.  I here note that the victim of the ultimate loss did have to go to the trouble of engaging Mr Morey to pursue you for this debt and, no doubt, there was some incentive for you to endeavour to pay it as you had implicated your wife in the fraud, but there was still a loss of $5,000 to a financial institution.

[6]        Ibid, para [4(b)].

8Charge 3, theft, which is a continuing criminal enterprise offence, was committed on 14 July 2015.  The victim of this offending, Mr Fick, had been a client of yours some four years earlier and held you in high regard.  At your client’s request, you found a BMW for him and he engaged you to arrange finance in order to purchase it.  You made a successful application on his behalf to CBA for a loan of $189,000, with an agreement signed by your client that CBA would hold a registered charge over the BMW until Mr Fick discharged his loan, and, further, in the event that Mr Fick lost possession of the BMW, he was obliged to immediately repay the loan, less any amounts of principal that had already been repaid.  On 14 July 2015, with Mr Fick’s consent, CBA transferred $189,000 into Cars National’s bank account.  Instead of using it to acquire the new BMW for Mr Fick, you applied the money to Cars National’s account, which was overdrawn by over $234,549.82.

9Over a period of many months, you strung Mr Fick along with a number of different lies as to why the car had not been delivered, including that there were delays in shipping the car to him.  You never revealed to Mr Fick that you had spent the entirety of the loan taken out on his behalf.  These various lies were told up until December 2015 and, ultimately, Mr Fick took civil action against Cars National and obtained a default judgment against it on 29 April 2016.  The amount of the judgment was never paid and no money was ever returned to CBA or Mr Fick.  Mr Fick was compelled, under the agreement, to continue to make repayments on the CBA loan of $2,615.74 per month over a term of sixty months, with interest of $24,644 and a final payment of $56,700.  Mr Fick never received the BMW vehicle, which the seller, Doncaster BMW, eventually sold to another person.

10Charge 4, theft, was committed on 9 December 2015.  The victim of this offending was Ms Cassidy, who was a previous customer of Cars National.  Ms Cassidy had $19,500 still owing to Macquarie Finance in relation to her existing Mercedes Benz.  She wished to purchase a Toyota FJ Cruiser.  You agreed to find the latter for her and to arrange finance.  On her behalf, you lodged an application with Westpac for a loan of $66,000.  The understanding was that $50,000 of that money would be for the new car and the remaining $16,000 would be applied to the outstanding “balloon” payment on the Mercedes Benz loan with Macquarie Finance.  On 9 December 2015, Westpac had granted the loan application and $66,000 was transferred into Cars National account.  At that time, Cars National account was overdrawn by $209,905.40.  Some time went by and Ms Cassidy could not understand why she was still having to make payments on her Mercedes Benz as she had understood that you should have discharged the remaining loan on the vehicle by that time.  You strung her along by telling her you would “sort something out”.

11On 5 February 2016, the Toyota FJ Cruiser was delivered to Ms Cassidy and she handed over to you the keys to her existing Mercedes Benz on the understanding that you would arrange to sell that vehicle on her behalf.

12On 26 February 2016, you did reimburse Ms Cassidy in the sum of $1,522.24, which was for loan repayments due on the Mercedes Benz for January and February 2016.  However, despite assurances from you, her account continued to have debits in relation to that loan for March, April and May 2016.  You ultimately phoned Ms Cassidy on 1 June 2016, indicating that Cars National had ceased operating and that you had possession of her Mercedes Benz and arranged for return of the Mercedes Benz to her via Toretto.  It had been left to Ms Cassidy to contact Macquarie Finance, herself, to explain the situation in relation to her Mercedes Benz.  Despite many communications with her, you never advised her that you had stolen $16,000 of the $66,000 loan from Westpac or that the Toyota FJ Cruiser had actually been purchased for $46,490, that is, $19,510 less than the amount of the $66,000 loan.  However, in his further written submissions, Mr Tovey advised that there was no ultimate “loss” to Ms Cassidy as her loss was “covered by eventual sale of [her] vehicle and $6,000 from Motor Vehicle Traders Fund”.[7]  The prosecution agree with these further submissions, but there is no documentation before the court as to when Ms Cassidy managed to sell the Mercedes Benz or when she received the payment from the Motor Car Traders Fund.

[7]        Ibid, para [4(d)].

13Charge 5, theft, was committed on 3 March 2016.  The victim of this offending was Ms Lika, who, in February 2016, met with you and agreed to purchase a demonstration model of a Mercedes Benz.  It was arranged that you would sell her existing BMW.  Ms Lika and her sister-in-law were directors of two bakery businesses.  You completed finance applications for both of those businesses via Southern Cross Business Finance who, in turn, submitted them to Westpac Bank.  In the applications you had supplied details of two Mercedes Benz which you had ordered for Ms Lika and her sister-in-law from a Brighton dealership.  Two loans of $47,500 were granted by Westpac and, on 3 March 2016, an amount of $95,000 was transferred into Cars National bank account.  This amount was never used to purchase the vehicles, but was used to reduce the overdraft on the Cars National bank account, which was $231,959.96 at that time.

14Subsequent to your theft of the $95,000, you strung along the Mercedes Benz dealership, giving a variety of reasons as to why the settlement was held up, including a lie that one of the directors was interstate and unable to sign documents.  You also strung along Ms Lika and told her a lie that the reason for the delay in delivering her Mercedes Benz was that it was coming from overseas.  It was not until Ms Lika’s husband contacted Southern Cross Business Finance on 13 May 2016 that the truth became apparent.  In his further written submissions, Mr Tovey advised that Ms Lika’s ultimate loss was $7,500 due to payment of $80,000 by the Motor Car Traders Fund and $7,500 having been waived by Westpac.[8]  The prosecution agree with these subsequent submissions, but there is no documentation before the court as to when the $80,000 restitution was paid to Ms Lika or when the $7,500 was waived by Westpac.

[8]        Ibid, para [4(e)].

15Charge 6, obtaining property by deception, which is a continuing criminal enterprise offence, involved you offending on 16 December 2016.  On 8 September 2016, a Mr Camilleri had contracted with you to purchase a new Holden for him, and you promised that delivery would occur within six weeks.  On 12 September 2016, you sourced a vehicle from Bay City Holden.  You subsequently advised Mr Camilleri that he should pay for the vehicle by direct deposit to the account of Macquarie Fleet Partners, which was a business operated by your co-accused, Toretto.  In fact, this account was linked to a personal Visa debit card belonging to Toretto. 

16Mr Camilleri made three payments to the account: $20,000 on 9 October 2016; $20,000 on 10 October 2016; and $13,500 on 11 October 2016.  The money was specifically provided on the basis that you would pay for the new Holden vehicle.  This did not occur.  Instead, you appropriated all of Mr Camilleri’s three payments and applied them to other debts incurred by Macquarie Fleet Partners by depositing them into an account controlled by Toretto.

17Again, you strung along your client, who was repeatedly enquiring about the delivery of the vehicle.  A variety of excuses for the delay were provided, including that the Holden had not yet been delivered or that a part or accessory was missing. 

18You had already misappropriated the entire $53,000 from Mr Camilleri and, then, on 16 December 2016, you executed a contract for the purchase of the vehicle with Bay City Holden for $53,000.  You provided a fraudulent receipt which, on its face, stated that $53,000 had been paid into the Bay City Holden bank account.  In fact, this was an altered version of an existing receipt. 

19Believing the fraudulent receipt to be genuine, Bay City Holden released the Holden to Mr Camilleri on 17 December 2016.  The receipt was discovered to be fraudulent on 10 March 2017.  A part payment of $7,500 was made by you to Mr Camilleri.  Legal proceedings were later brought against Macquarie Fleet Partners, and Toretto ultimately paid the remaining $45,500.  In his further written submissions, Mr Tovey characterised the end result of this offending on Charge 6 as “No loss – funds repaid by Macquarie Fleet Partners”.[9]  The court was further advised in an email from your solicitor that “the funds were repaid between March and September 2017”.[10]  The prosecution agree with these submissions.

[9]        Ibid, para [4(f)].

[10]        MFI-3 – “Email from offender’s solicitor to the court dated 12 August 2025”.

20You are presently aged 54 years, having been born in September 1970.  You come before the court with no prior criminal history. 

21In a plea on your behalf, Mr Tovey noted that you were aged between 39 and 44 years at the time of this offending.  It will be nine years in December since the commission of your last offence, Charge 6, on 16 December 2016.  You have no subsequent criminal history.

22You come from a close and decent family and have two brothers.  You are married and have two children in their twenties.

23After completing Year 12, you had initially worked in turf management whilst obtaining a qualification in greenkeeping.  Later, in 1999, you joined Victoria Police where you undertook eight years of active service, ultimately in the SOCIT Unit.  It was in the context of feeling that you needed a rest from that work that you decided to move into the car industry.    You undertook courses in sales and management before commencing work with the Mazda dealership in Mornington.

24A quantity of references was tendered as Exhibit “1” as to your good character:

(a)   your mother, aged 87 years, spoke of how she had recently lost her husband, your father, and what a great support you had been to her and how unbearable she finds it that you might end up going to prison.  She has a number of health issues which she detailed in her reference.

(b)   Your wife of 28 years also wrote a reference stating that you have been a loving husband and father and are community-minded.  In particular, you had undertaken a great deal of volunteer work to support your local baseball club and had been honoured by being made a life member there.  She stated that the family had lived with the anxiety of these matters for many years, and it has taken a toll on the whole family.  She described you as an honest man who was her rock, the one who had always supported the family and paid the bills, the mortgage and managed family finances.  Subsequent to this offending, you had obtained work full-time in tractor sales to continue to support the family.  She stated that, without you, she fears that they will lose the family home, and she noted how much your mother relied on you to help care for her in her daily life.

(c)   Your son, aged 21 years, wrote a reference that you have taught him to be a person of good values and respect others, and that you had supported him at every sport that he had undertaken and given him confidence to talk about personal issues.  He described you as a generous, community-spirited person who comes from a law-abiding family, a good man who has shown remorse and taken responsibility for what you have done.

(d)   Your sister-in-law stated that she had known you for 25 years and wrote of the stress and anxiety which had burdened you and your family for a long time.  She stated that she has no concerns that you will re-offend and that you were known as an honest, reliable and trustworthy person for whom your offending conduct is out of character.

(e)   The president of your local baseball club wrote of how you had been a junior player with that club in 1982 and had gone on to serve in many executive roles over a period of 20 years, such that in 2015 the club awarded you life membership for outstanding services.  He, too, commented that you are remorseful and regretful for your offending which is uncharacteristic.

(f)    The General Manager of the business for whom you work provided a letter confirming that you had been employed since 3 November 2021, and that the business is responsible for the sale of new and used equipment in a large area of Victoria.  A second reference by him spoke of how, in the 3 years and 10 months that he has known you, you have made every effort to learn and understand the product that they are selling and that, through your efforts, the business’ share of market sales had significantly increased.  He attributes this to your good relationships with customers such that there are many referrals, and the fact that you always make yourself available when customers have concerns.  He stated that you also help out colleagues and are motivated to identify new ways of selling.  He stated that he had only recently become aware of your offending and that you had expressed remorse to him.

25Mr Thompson, I have no doubt that you were formerly a person of good character who is a family man and who has been a loving and caring son, brother, husband and father.  A number of family members were in court to support you at the plea hearing.  Clearly, you devoted valuable years of service as a police officer and many years of generous volunteering in the community, particularly with your local baseball club.  I appreciate that your co-offender, Toretto, was more experienced in the car and finance industry than yourself, but many of the references contain statements which seek to excuse your offending, such as you are “a good man, that tried and failed”[11]; asking that the court “recognise that this was (your) first business and you were still learning”[12]; that the author is “confident that the offending was not a consequence of a deliberate act by (you)”[13]; that your offending resulted from “a dire situation brought about where [your] business partner Rob was using money in the business bank accounts for other purchases, that left (you) unable to pay debts”[14]; and that you had “expressed a significant degree of naivety with regards [sic] to the situation (you find yourself) in”.[15]

[11]Reference offender’s wife, part of Exhibit “1”.

[12]Reference of offender’s son, part of Exhibit “1”.

[13]Reference of president of local baseball club, part of Exhibit “1”.

[14]Reference of offender’s sister-in-law, part of Exhibit “1”.

[15]Reference of offender’s current employer, part of Exhibit “1”.

26Your counsel submitted that your offending was not committed through greed and that you were not leading a lavish lifestyle.  The reality of your offending is that you did not simply make one isolated bad judgement.  You went into business, on your own account, knowing that Toretto had already failed in his business for some reason and that he needed you to be the director of Cars National.  You were a grown man, who had held responsible positions in the community, both in your employment and as a volunteer.  It is plain that, from the time of the first offence, your business was heavily indebted.  Whilst it is true that there is no evidence of you leading a lavish lifestyle, the fact is that you repeatedly showed no moral qualms about using thousands and thousands of dollars of other people’s money to keep your business afloat so that you could earn a livelihood.  Whether that should be classed as “greed” is a matter of semantics.  You showed a cavalier attitude to using the money of others for your own benefit, and your former good character and ability to have others trust you enabled you to do so.  I have already gone through the multiple deceptions which you practised, including creating false documents and repeatedly lying to both your customers and representatives of car dealerships, as well as making false representations to financial institutions. 

27In particular, the court was told that Cars National entered administration in May 2016.  Notwithstanding that fact, you still committed Charge 6 on 16 December 2016.  You repeatedly betrayed the trust of individual clients in order to try to save your failing business.  Although your offending was not constant, when it occurred, it involved large sums of money and acts of deception which comprised a degree of planning and use of your knowledge of how things operated in relation to obtaining finance for vehicles. 

28When interviewed by police on 6 October 2021, you told a number of lies albeit that you did make some admissions.  In particular, you stated “that ‘a lot of times’ (you) set up finance for a client and put in a ‘dummy car’ and that finance companies were aware and happy that it was the case”.[16]This is really quite astonishing coming from a former police officer, whose duty it was to uphold the law.  Put clearly and simply, it was plainly illegal to put a “dummy car” into a finance application and you must have been well and truly aware of it.  I do not accept that you had “a significant degree of naivety” as one of your referees state.  I certainly do not accept that your offending “was not a consequence of a deliberate act”, as mentioned by another of your referees. They were very deliberate and quite elaborate lies, misrepresentations and false documents which were involved in this offending. 

[16]Exhibit “A’, page 8, paragraph 45(t) and question 105(1) and answer in the record of interview.

29The total amount involved was substantial, only $10,000 short of $600,000.  There was premeditation by you and fobbing off of clients, car dealerships and finance companies, which effectively delayed the discovery of your fraudulent conduct.  Although your offending was sporadic, each offence involved the setting up of the fraudulent conduct, the actual commission of the offence, and then covering up of your offending. 

30In his further written submissions, Mr Tovey submitted that the net consequences of your offending were that a total of $196,500 was lost by “individuals” (Mr Fick and Ms Lika), Westpac “forgave or waived a total of approximately $12,500” and the Motor Car Traders Fund repaid approximately $86,000.  It is true that the law regards it as generally more egregious conduct which results in loss to individual victims, rather than to trust funds or financial institutions.  However, the fact that trust funds or financial institutions may pick up part of the loss created by you in no way mitigates the lack of morality involved in your offending.  The fact is that in multiple instances there was delay and, no doubt, angst, by victims of your offending about their loss before the Motor Car Traders Fund or financial institutions determined to take on that loss.  Indeed, in relation to Charges 1 and 6, restitution was not made voluntarily, but only occurred after the party suffering the loss resorted to legal proceedings.  The fact that some individuals suffered no loss or limited loss because they were accommodated by other entities means that the loss did not fall upon those least likely to be able to bear it and is no thanks to you.

31The worst impact has been felt by Mr Fick, as detailed in his Victim Impact Statement made on 20 June 2025,[17] which was read to the court.  He describes how having to pay back the loan placed enormous stress on his young family and created tensions with his wife, and they ultimately separated in 2018.  They are divorced and he was left with the balloon payment and lost monies on his side of the financial separation agreement.  He describes how, apart from this financial loss, he had trusted you and now harbours deep cynicism in interactions with others.  He describes depression, anxiety and sleeplessness, and stated that your crime had been a significant turning point in his life.

[17]Exhibit “B”.

32To repeatedly make use of the money of others for your own purposes shows a serious lack of moral judgement on your part.  There can be no doubt that, in sentencing for these matters, denunciation, general deterrence and just punishment are the predominant sentencing considerations.  Certainly, in this court, we see fraudulent criminal acts involving greater sums of money than in your case.  However, your repeated breaches of trust and the amounts of money involved still make this, overall, relatively serious offending towards the mid-range for this type of offending, and your moral culpability is high.

33There was no psychological material tendered on your behalf to suggest that you were suffering from any psychological or psychiatric condition which impaired your judgement, which, time and time again, failed the test of decency and lawfulness, as you took advantage of people who relied upon you, and then strung them along to cover your tracks.  Further, this type of offending can be difficult to detect and onerous amounts of community resources are required to be spent in the investigation and prosecution of it.  The sheer volume of the brief in this matter, which extends to some 22,000 pages or more, is indicative of the latter factor.  In sentencing you, a message must go out to the community that those who are entrusted with very substantial sums on behalf of others hold a significant position of trust and, if they abuse that trust by dishonesty, they will be appropriately punished. This is so that those who might be minded to engage in similar dishonest means to those employed by you will know that such conduct will not be tolerated and will meet with appropriate punishment.

34Your counsel stated that you are truly remorseful.  I have little doubt that you suffer enormous guilt and shame, and I accept that you do suffer some remorse.  However, it was not to the extent that you considered it appropriate to try to make any amends, particularly to Mr Fick, who had dealt with you previously and had every reason to believe that you would look after his interests.  The court was told that you own the family home, which your counsel stated had a value of $1.5 million and a mortgage of $450,000.  In addition, you own an investment property in Tasmania worth $450,000.  This property has a mortgage of $150,000, which is paid by instalments of $1,100 per month.  The mortgage is effectively covered by the rental of $350.00 per week.  There was no suggestion that you would sell this property to try and recompense Mr Fick, who suffered very considerably, both financially and emotionally, and obtained judgement against you on 29 April 2016, over one year prior to you becoming a bankrupt in May 2017.  It is of no comfort to Mr Fick that the trustee in bankruptcy holds caveats over both your family home and the Tasmanian investment property[18] as your counsel, Mr Tovey, mentioned in his further submissions.  It is important to recall that, at the plea hearing, the court was told that Fick’s judgement debt had not been included in the bankruptcy.  In any event, it is now approximately 8 years since you became a bankrupt and no evidence was put before the court as to your overall indebtedness which had led to bankruptcy or what, if any, payments were likely to be made to creditors who are known to the trustee.

[18]        MFI-2, paras [10]-[11].

35In sentencing you, I do take into account in your favour the following matters:

(a)   Your pleas of guilty.  The investigation of these crimes involved great time and resources because of the very significant amount of detail compromising them.  Also, evidence implicating you was intertwined with the offending of your co-accused, Toretto, whose matters apparently remain in the list for trial.  Once the investigation was completed and the extent of your offending was understood by the prosecution, the charges against you proceeded by way of straight hand-up brief to the County Court on 20 May 2024.  After multiple directions hearings and negotiations, the parties agreed on the facts contained in the Prosecution Opening and you ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges on the indictment on 26 May 2025.  The prosecutor, Mr Cookson, conceded that given, the complex circumstances involved, these pleas should be regarded as early pleas of guilty.  I take those early pleas of guilty into account and agree that, given, the large quantity of evidentiary material, your pleas of guilty have significant utilitarian value.  Had the matters proceeded to trial, it most likely would have been a lengthy and expensive one.  I also accept that there is some remorse attached to them.  In these circumstances, you are entitled to a real and tangible discount on the sentence which otherwise would have been imposed.

(b)   There has been very significant delay in this matter.  The offending spanned the period from 17 September 2014 to 16 December 2016, now many years ago.  You were interviewed by police on 6 October 2021.  It would seem that the subsequent onset of COVID and the impact on both the investigation and court matters generally, coupled with the very intricate nature of the investigation, including disentangling Toretto’s involvement from yours, resulted in a lengthy period of delay until the matter finally came on for plea hearing in this Court in early August 2025.  I accept that you have had the anxiety and uncertainty associated with these matters hanging over your head for a long time, impacting upon you and your family.  In these circumstances, delay is a powerful mitigating factor and will result in a much lighter sentence being imposed than otherwise would have been the case.

(c)   The extra burden of imprisonment in your case.  Although you have not been engaged in active service as a police officer since approximately 2007, I accept that serving a prison sentence is likely to make you fearful that your former occupation may become known to other prisoners.  This is likely to make serving a sentence of imprisonment more burdensome than otherwise would be the case.  Also, I am conscious of the grief that you have suffered through the very recent death of your father, his funeral having only been held on 8 August 2025.  Your mother has plainly relied upon you, not only in this time of great family sadness, but also in relation to support for her own health issues, as she is elderly.  Whilst there are other family members in your close family who should be able to step up to assist your mother, I do take into account that you enjoy a close and loving relationship and that you will worry about her whilst you are in custody.  This factor, together with concern as to how your family will manage financially, will also add to your anxiety and the burden of imprisonment.  I am also mindful that, as a person with no criminal history or familiarity with the prison system, you will most likely find serving a prison sentence for the first time very hard.

(d)   Your prospects of rehabilitation.  I take into account your lack of prior and subsequent offending.  I acknowledge that you have a history of working hard, and, even with these charges hanging over your head, you have been in full employment selling tractors since 3 November 2021 and currently earn nearly $200,000 per year.  I consider that these factors, together with your early pleas of guilty, suggest that your prospects of rehabilitation are good, particularly since your family and friends continue to rally around you in support of you.  Thus, I accept your counsel’s submissions that there is no need, at this stage, for emphasis in sentencing upon specific deterrence.

(e)   Totality.  I am conscious that three of the offences for which I must sentence you are continuing criminal enterprise offences, which carry double the usual penalty for the offences, namely, 20 years’ imprisonment.  I have heeded the Court of Appeal decisions in Arundell,[19] Grossi[20] and Abela,[21] and the general caution against automatically giving a higher penalty for continuing criminal enterprise offences than for non-continuing criminal enterprise offences. Plainly, the quantum on Charges 1 and 3 is significantly higher than on the other charges, and I have particularly taken this factor into account in the sentencing process. Also, the impact upon your victim on Charge 3, Mr Fick, was particularly adverse to both his psychological and financial wellbeing, and that is an important factor. Thus, although I have taken into account the maximum penalty applicable to each of these six offences and the provisions of the Sentencing Act 1991 in relation to the 3 continuing criminal enterprise offences, the quantum is the main factor that marks the gravity of Charges 1 and 3, noting that Charge 6, involving $53,000, is considerably less. It is perhaps fair to say that the multiple acts of deception and dishonesty are not necessarily more marked in relation to those 3 continuing criminal enterprise charges than in relation to the other 3 charges. Clearly, it is important that the principle of totality be applied in order to ensure that the overall sentence is a just, proportionate and fair one.

[19][2003] VSCA 69.

[20][2008] 23 VR 500.

[21][2014] VSCA 266.

36Mr Tovey has submitted that a Community Correction Order is an appropriate sentence for your offending.  In my view, even taking into account the mitigatory factors in your favour, your dishonest offending involving $590,000 of other people’s money over a period of two years and three months, with each of the charges involving significant acts of deception and the betrayal of trust, has caused me to consider, that the sentence of last resort – a term of imprisonment – is the only appropriate sentence.  However, I consider that your good prosects of rehabilitation warrant the setting of a relatively short non-parole period.

37On Charge 1, you are convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 10 months.

38On Charge 2, you are convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 3 months.

39On Charge 3, you are convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 16 months.

40On Charge 4, you are convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 4 months.

41On Charge 5, you are convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 6 months.

42On Charge 6, you are convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of 4 months.

43The base sentence is that imposed on Charge 3.  I direct that 4 months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, 1 month of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, 1 month of the sentence imposed on Charge 4, 1 month of the sentence imposed on Charge 5 and 1 month of the sentence imposed on Charge 6 be served cumulatively upon the base sentence and upon each other.  The total effective sentence is 24 months’ imprisonment.  I direct that you serve a period of 6 months imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole.

44Pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act 1991, I state that had it not been for your pleas of guilty, the total effective sentence imposed would have been 5 ½ years’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 3 years and 8 months.

45Pursuant to s 6J(1) of the Sentencing Act 1991, I cause to be entered into the records of the court in respect of Charges 1, 3 and 6 that you have been sentenced for a continuing criminal enterprise offence.