R v Simon Charles Patrick Finnigan

[2011] NSWDC 226

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	R v Simon Charles Patrick FINNIGAN [2011] NSWDC 226
Decision date:	16 December 2011
Jurisdiction:	Criminal
Before:	Finnane QC DCJ
Decision:	The offender, Simon Charles Patrick FINNIGAN, is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10 years to commence on 16 December 2011 and expiring on 15 December 2021 with a non-parole period of 6 years. The offender is first eligible for parole on 15 December 2017.
Catchwords:	CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - Fraud - Ponzi Scheme - Dishonest conduct in relation to financial product - Section 1041G Corporations Act
Legislation Cited:	Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
Category:	Sentence
Parties:	Regina Simon Charles Patrich Finnigan
Representation:	Crown: Mr P R McGuire Defence: Mr J Papolia
File Number(s):	2010/367689

Judgment

1. The offender, Simon Charles Patrick Finnigan, has pleaded guilty to nine offences under s 1041G of the Corporations Act, that is dishonest conduct in relation to financial services and financial products. Each of these offences carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.

2. What he was involved in is what is called a Ponzi scheme. These schemes or this scheme has been around for a long time. My investigations indicate that an Italian man, (by the name of Carlo Ponzi), who went to America in the early 1900's by the name of Carlo Ponzi was the first person to come to fame for inventing this type of scheme. Mr Ponzi told his investors they could get a forty per cent return in ninety days. The gullibility of people in the 1900's was just as great as it is today and more than a million dollars was given to him in one three hour period.

3. The essence of the scheme is that an investor, so called, is persuaded to put a lot of money up with the confident trickster on the promise that this will be invested and there will be a higher return. That person is then paid this higher return or monthly basis or a weekly or fortnightly, depending on whatever the contract arrangement is. He is then used as a recruiting agent for further people to come along and put investments in. Because, naturally, the first person getting this substantial return is enthusiastic when others come to ask him what it is like, and he says, "it is fabulous, I am getting this return every month, you really want to get onto this". And investor by investor comes along and puts the money in. But the money is not invested in anything. The money is used to meet subsequent investors to pay the interest owing to the previous investor or investors and it is used to provide a wonderful lifestyle for the person who has thought up this great scheme. Eventually everything comes to an end when no further investors can be obtained, no more money can be produced, no repayment of capital can be had and everything collapses.

4. The most spectacular recent example of it, again occurring in the United States, concerned a man called Bernard Madoff who managed to persuade investors that they should invest with him, what effectively became a loss of sixty-nine billion dollars. He was sentenced by the United States District Court of New York on June 29 2009 and given 150 years in gaol. Under the American Court system the principle of totality does not seem to count. It is not clear to me what happens at the end of 150 years. I do not know whether they dig his body up and throw the remains outside the gaol or what exactly they do. But apparently he can go to parole in 2135 or something, by which stage he would be over 200. So it was a much bigger scheme than this one. This scheme with Mr Finnigan I am told involved some 1.96 million.

5. Essentially exactly the same things happened; it is just the scale of it was different. I have read the decision of the US District Court, it is reported and I read the statements made by the victims to the Judge. It was as if I were reading the same statements that were made in this case by the people who were defrauded in this case, exactly the same sorts of things were said.

6. This sort of crime is a crime against people. It is not a crime against institutions. It is not a crime against the taxation system, nor is it a crime against any large institution or bank or government. It is a very cruel one because it attacks individuals.

7. Mr Finnigan came to this Court having pleaded guilty, but having pleaded guilty only recently. He in fact contested the matter right up to the committal stage and required some of the investors to come along to the committal and be cross-examined. He must get some discount on sentence for his plea of guilty, but clearly he is not going to get anything like the maximum discount.

8. The facts of the case are contained in a statement of facts. He is a man who was born on 6 March 1962 and is presently forty-nine years of age. It would appear that he commenced to operate this Ponzi scheme in 2001, but the particular offences with which I have to deal occur between 15 October 2003 and 31 March 2007. He was a director of a large numbers of companies. The details of those companies are contained in the statement of facts. I do not need to go through and mention each one of them. It is sufficient to say that either they are under external administration or they have been deregistered. At no time, despite his representations to the contrary, did he hold an Australian Financial Services licence, nor did any of the companies of which he was a director hold such a licence.

9. It would appear that he and another man who is not associated with this scheme used to hold seminars and talk to people about what they could do with their investments, and people would go along and listen to what was happening and then want to talk to him. A document called an Investment Security Document was drafted. I have seen that document. It is a sham document made to look as if it is a genuine document drawn up by lawyers. It is a sham document in the sense that there is nothing in the document that would protect anybody relying on it who invested money in accordance with it. It is a sham because it says that during currency of the agreement each party must cooperate and use that party's best endeavours to ensure the business of both parties is successfully conducted. He, of course, took no steps whatsoever at any time to ensure that the business was successfully conducted, because in truth there was no business.

10. The first person he defrauded was Mrs Matt. She met him in 2003 and he made representations to her which were false, but because of the way in which he spoke she did not check on them, apparently. He said that he had a really big company with offices all over Australia and he was a financial adviser and he made people money. Well, he did not have a really big company, he had a number of shelf companies that had nothing in them of any substance. He did not have offices all over Australia and if he was a financial advisor he was operating illegally because he had no licence to advise anybody on financial matters.

11. He then said, and this is the most false representation, "I invest money for people with absolutely no risk attached and I give them a big return". In fact as events showed he invested nothing. He did give them a return, initially he gave her fifteen per cent a month. He said that he gave personal guarantees and he did but they were sham guarantees because they were secured on nothing. He then said, "I've so many companies, I've so much money I am happy to do that and there's no risk involved, I'm happy to put that in writing if you are interested". Well all of that was completely false because what he intended to do was to get the money and use it and there was a hundred per cent risk that it would be lost unless he could get lots of other people to come along and keep propping the business up.

12. He then befriended Mrs Matt and he made false representations to her about doing lectures, having lawyers on his board, nobody had ever lost money, and a really good representation:

"I have a very rich auntie in England who is worth hundreds of millions. I am going to be the only person inheriting her money, so all my investments are covered at this time. I'd rather lose my own life than lose anybody else's money."

13. Now looking at it in the cold light of day years afterwards, it would be easy to say, "well, why would anyone believe such fantastic representations. Why would anyone take seriously such claims not backed up by anything, not substantiated by anything?" If somebody says "I can give a guarantee", why would you not get a lawyer to go and produce a document and make sure it is secured on real estate. But that is all very well looking at it in hindsight. The fact is at the time it looked very good, and he did not do as Mr Ponzi did and promise forty per cent returns, he promised fifteen and that is a very handsome return, it can be achieved sometimes by some companies. So he was not offering something that was out of all proportion.

14. The other claims he made were false but he was a very plausible fellow and she believed it. He then persuaded her to invest with him $200,000, claiming to her that she was getting a very poor return on her superannuation fund and three properties she currently had and she accepted his representations and made available this sum of money. There was a document signed which said, "Utilised for investment purposes with a projected rate of return of at least fifteen per cent per annum. Simon Finnigan personally guarantees investment", that was written in the document. She drew the cheque and she kept getting the interest payments until November 2005 when they ceased. They were paid into a particular bank account of Financial Partners Pty Limited, one of his companies. The only other sum of money deposited to that account was the sum of $50,000 deposited on 8 July 2004.

15. Of the funds that were deposited he spent $149,000 of this $200,000 paying back other investors, or not paying them back, paying them interest amounts, $21,000 to employees, $2,000 on his Visa account, $10,000 for cash withdrawals. He paid a group of real estate agents $21,000 and a bit more and he paid Haines Norton who provided accounting services nearly $14,000. None of the money was invested and the return that Mrs Matt got was basically a false return, not from investment but from other monies that other people deposited with him.

16. He went so far as to become a business partner of Mrs Matt. Premises were rented and he commenced to manage her cash flow and her bills. By March or April 2006 she stopped getting interest payments and he made some false claims to her about what he had done with her money and then in 2007 he just said it is not there.

17. The second defrauded person, Mrs Russell was a lady who operated a catering business. She was referred to him by Mrs Matt. She rang him to discuss her financial circumstances. At that stage she was the sole carer for her husband who was a stroke victim. She went and filled in a form called a "Client Profile Form". He made claims about his expertise in property management and shares and said he would take care of all of her financial deeds. He said that Financial Partners were involved in all sorts of projects, some of which were on a video shown to her, and he said: "Financial Partners are involved in water, steel, air-conditioning for buildings", he sais he was promoting a professional singer, he was very experienced at managing projects and one of the investments he could offer was to take out a short term loan as investments. "There are all these people out there who are desperate to borrow money and they do not care how much they pay." All of these claims were completely false. He was involved in no such businesses at all.

18. Over a couple of months he made further representations. He claimed he was previously based in Perth and made a lot of money there. He was a multi millionaire, he was independently wealthy, he has got family money from his mother who lives in England, he keeps all his assets in trusts so he is a man of straw. "If anything goes wrong nobody can touch my money." That last statement may be the only true statement he ever made, that he is a man of straw and if anything goes wrong nobody can touch his money. Since all this scheme came to an end he has become a bankrupt. Nobody can get anything.

19. He claimed to be on the board of twenty major companies. All this was false. He claimed to guarantee everything. Well he did but the guarantees were worth nothing. He claimed that most venture capitals only had a fifty per cent success rate. He had got an eight-five to ninety per cent success rate. All the projects he was involved in were doing fantastically well, "this is the best year I have ever had, I can guarantee you a return of fifteen per cent." When asked how he could guarantee that he said, "It's not risky I do 'puts' on the markets". All of this was of course completely false.

20. Again between July and October 2004 she kept receiving interest payments because Mrs Matt had provided the money to enable him to make the interest payments to Mrs Russell. In October 2004 he persuaded her to mortgage her assets, take out a loan of $500,000 and put even more money with him, and she did this. From this money ASIC investigations show he made payments to other investors of 355, 350, paid employees 7,700, paid his own Visa account 19,500, paid a firm of solicitors nearly 18,000, paid some real estate agent nearly 12,000, paid another real estate agent 3,000 and paid MM Cosmetics 2,500. Now MM Cosmetics was a consultancy operated by Mrs Matt and no doubt that payment was made for two reasons, one, because she was there and her suspicions had to be allayed, if she had any, also he had an interest in that particular business.

21. Mrs Russell was one of the people who was cross-examined during the committal proceedings and she made it plain that she would not have invested any money had she known he was going to use her money to pay his personal and business expenses. Over a period of time, particularly between February and March 2006, she became aware that the interest payments were being delayed by weeks or months, she could not contact him easily, she wanted the return of her investment, she threatened to complain to ASIC. He then claimed he could refund the money in instalments. " I have got all sorts of things on the boil", all this was completely false. Nothing more was paid to her and she lost her entire investment.

22. The third person was Mrs McConkey and again she was recruited through Mrs Matt. Again he made a whole series of false representations to her about his skill in investment and running businesses and the return he could make of fifteen per cent. He claimed to out perform competitors and return more than fifteen per cent so he was able to pay her fifteen per cent and keep the cream.

23. He talked about the biotech project which was a complete fake and told her it had huge potential. At this stage, when she inquired of Mrs Matt she was told she was quite happy with what she was getting. That indeed of course is an essential component of these schemes, some of the investors have to be kept happy so that others will come along and put their money in.

24. In July 2006 Mrs McConkey got the balance of an inheritance and contacted him to discuss investments. He made false representations about Biotech Solutions, closing the share offer on the gold washing component of the technology. He said:

"I underwrite the shares, how safe is that, there's no risk the shares are pre-float. Biotech Solutions will be publicly listed by the end of 2006, I'm confident, so confident that the company will list on the stock exchange, if we're not listed I'll personally buy back your shares out of my own pocket. The investment will underwrite your house. You'll be able to make a house next to you you'll be so rich. I personally will make billions, this is the project I've been after all my life".

25. Relying on these representations Mrs McConkey telegraphically transferred $230,000 to the Venture Capital Management account and all she got in return for it was a receipt referring to the purchase of 11,500 ordinary shares in Biotech Solutions at twenty dollars a share.

26. Of the money that she invested 33,500 went to pay other investors, 24,153 to pay employees, 5,000 to pay his own Visa account, 190,777 to pay Mrs Orszaczky who is the next person mentioned, 10,500 to Longueville Media and 5,000 to a business called Tough As Nails.

27. Michelle Orszaczky sold her house in 2006 in July to Christopher Bear, she got the funds on 4 July 2006. The offender purchased four bank cheques for the City of Canada Bay Council, Sydney Water, Paul Madigan Associates and Mrs Orszaczky, who the bank cheque was for, $190,607.29. Mr Bear invested 200,000 with Financial Partners and a further 38,000 in early 2004. In time he ceased receiving his monthly investments and he, before he sold the house, said, "I want to withdraw my $200,000 investment, I am buying a house" and he wanted cheques for the settlement including a cheque from Mrs Orszaczky and also to pay the rates, solicitors and council rates. Contrary to his representations the offender did not invest Mrs McConkey's funds in Biotech Solutions, but used the money in the way that I have indicated.

28. A Mr Per Hassel is the next person defrauded. He met the offender in about November 2004 having been recommended to him by Manuela Matt. Mr Hassel was the partner of Mrs McConkey. He told the offender he would like to get a better rate of return on his AMP superannuation fund. He was told Financial Partners superannuation scheme gets a fifteen per cent annual return on initial and subsequent investment, inclusive of all fees. Again when you look at it today, these years later, that is obviously absurd. But that is not the way it appeared at the time. He made representations basically that he could do better than AMP, he was a much better investment adviser and he handed over an investment memorandum and a testimonial on video by a woman who said, amongst other things, "Simon has helped me significantly with my financial affairs". Ultimately he paid over $122,339.31 to Financial Partners and once again $49,000 or thereabouts was used to pay other investors and the other payments were made for employees, his own Visa account and payments to solicitors, accountants and other persons. He did not invest the superannuation funds anywhere.

29. Mr Hassel put another 9,000 over to Financial Partners in June 2005 and another 3,000 on 30 June 2005 and on 30 November 2005 a further $4,900. On 31 January 2007 he gave the offender $10,000, again intended for this superannuation account. None of it has been repaid.

30. The next victim was a Philip Perez, counts 5 and 6. He operated a business known as Savoir Faire which provided staff to perform steward and waiter duties at corporate functions. He was referred by Mrs Russell and at this stage Mrs Russell was being paid her interest payments. At the time he was going through a divorce settlement and when he met the offender at the Elizabeth Street offices of Financial Partners the offender represented himself to be a financial advisor offering different types of investments and saying the minimum entry price is normally $200,000 to $250,000. "I don't usually accept investments smaller than that, I deal with high rollers". This was the same sort of representation that Mr Bernie Madoff made in New York, only Mr Madoff's representations were more in the order of the minimum investment was five million and he was reluctant to take it.

31. He then made further representations to Mr Perez about offices in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, and lots of exciting schemes and investments, three female singers who would become successful. He claimed to do a lot of research, he was going to put to market a revolutionary neon light. He had a water scheme, its purpose was to cool water towers and purify gold, it was being put together by a Western Australian scientist. Singapore had already signed contracts, the rest of the world will follow suit. Then he made representations about short term investments with very handsome returns but certainly of the order of fifteen per cent. He talked about people desperate for money who are prepared to pay a premium to get their hands on cash and the return that could be made from that. When asked what would happen if any of these people defaulted, he said, "You know it's never happened, if we did we'd go after their assets, anyway it's underwritten by us and guaranteed so you have nothing to worry about". He then showed a video on a laptop computer of a testimonial from a woman who said, "Thanks to Simon and Financial Partners I'm a happy retiree". Mr Perez then completed a questionnaire about his income and assets which he returned to the offender and ultimately Mr Perez liquidated some of his investments and gave the offender $100,000 for twelve months with interest payable monthly. Of that 100,000, 60,000 was given on 2 June and there were two further payments to make up the 100,000. Of the $60,000 that was paid, 2,000 was paid to other investors, 1,600 to employees, 6,000 to his Visa account, 11,000 to real estate agents, 16,769 to Albert Road Pty Limited and Allen Brown and Co 3,825. Allen Brown and Co were solicitors. The money was not used as promised and was not invested.

25. He persuaded Mr Perez to go and sign a mortgage loan application and invest more money and ultimately $400,000 further was invested. Of the monies invested $188,799 odd was used to pay investors, nearly 89,000 and then all the other payments to employees, Visa accounts, his own company, cash withdrawals and to other creditors. None of the money was invested, all of the money has been lost.

26. Ms. Dee Bone made an investment. Again the same types of false representations were made. Claims were made about his having seven to eight million dollars of his own money invested in property by his solicitor. Mr and Mrs Bone invested $200,000 by borrowing against the equity in their home. Again most of that money was used to pay other investors, 135,557, with all the other payments being made to pay himself and various creditors. no investments were made. Some returns were made to Mrs Bone and to her husband, but substantially all their money was lost.

27. Count 8 concerns a Signa Furber. She came to the offender through Manuela Matt because she was in the same sort of business as Mrs Matt. The same types of representations were made. Claims were made that Manuela Matt was getting rich as a result of what he was doing for her and ultimately she provided $200,000 which was supposed to be invested for twelve months with an interest of $2,500 payable monthly. Of this 106,500 was paid to other investors and all the rest of it was used to pay himself and his creditors. She also demanded she get her money back, but in fact she did not.

28. The final count concerns two people, Jacqueline Schell and Brendan Mullard who were partners in a holiday property business. They were searching for a business partner because they were involved in what was called anti-counterfeiting technology. The offender claimed to be a venture capitalist in a niche market with projects of up to around five million dollars. He made representations about Biotech, the value of which technology he said was one hundred million dollars. He claimed to run a clinic and two other companies, he had got shares, options and "puts" on the market. They, Mr Mullard and Ms Schell, were going to start a new business venture relating to DNA applications and they met the offender and discussed their technology and their interest. He said he would restructure their finances. He would mortgage the properties, he would invest the funds across a range of projects. The returns would always cover monthly repayments. "For friends like you I personally guarantee your funds. If anything ever goes wrong you have my word. I will repay every cent of your investment so there's no risk". He claimed to be:

"A member of the Millennium Club in Sydney, all corporate highflyers are members. We meet monthly to lobby government. My political contacts will help you to get the DNA technology passed in Australia".

36. He claimed to have started up Abbey National which is a home loan company, "a huge success, one of the best things I've done, I sold it for a hundred or two hundred million". Anyhow they put in $255,468.69 of the$250,000 in of which 192,592 was paid to investors and the rest was paid to himself and other creditors. Again despite his protestations of friendship and his investment expertise, none of this was invested. The money was lost.

37. There are victim impact statements that I have considered. They are all very sad documents. As well as that one of the victims read out a statement in Court. All of them are very sad documents. All of them are statements from people who have lost everything as a result of these false claims and the operation of this scheme. All of them believed this man, all of them regarded him in some way as a friend whom they could trust, and because they felt they could trust him they gave him money on his say so as to what he would do with it.

38. He is a person who has no previous criminal convictions and must be regarded as someone who before coming to this Court was a man of good character. A number of people made testimonials on his behalf, including a man called Steve Johnson. The Crown sought to cross-examine Mr Johnson. I have had regard to that evidence in cross-examination. Mr Johnson strikes me as someone on whom no reliance should be placed whatsoever. He is someone who was associated with him in a business sense, he employs the offender at the moment and I do not believe what Mr Johnson says about him. As to the other people I am sure they probably mean well but I do not take much comfort from what they say about him.

39. There is a Probation and Parole report which recounts his life. It is the only thing that has been put before me about his life because he himself has not sought to give any evidence. If what is said in this report is true, and it all depends on him, he came to this country from the United Kingdom when he was about six years old. He settled in Western Australia. He worked in Western Australia and eventually came to live in Sydney. When he was nineteen he bought and managed a fish and chip shop. He came to Sydney in 1996, he lived in leased accommodation in inner city locations. There are various other claims he made about his employment and the like, which may be true, I do not know. The report refers to Mr Johnson, although not by name, as someone who employed Mr Finnigan despite losing $10,000 as an investor. I do not think that the Probation and Parole Service officer has the same opinion of Mr Johnson as I have. The offender has no diagnosis of any psychiatric disorder or of any treatment with mental health professionals.

40. He told the Probation Officer he took full responsibility for his offending behaviour but claimed he did not intend investors should lose their money. In my mind that is a deliberate lie and I am surprised the Probation Officer should accept him as in any way being genuine. He claimed to the Probation Officer that he developed insomnia as a result of worrying about the effects of the matter on himself and others. He expressed remorse for the offending behaviour but attempted to justify his behaviour by indicating that he had understood as the investments were debenture style this allowed him a legal right to use the invested money for ventures. Again these are completely false representations made to a Probation Officer. So not only did he make false representations to investors, he continued with false representations when he spoke to a Probation Officer. He apparently took her in and she thought that he was unlikely to benefit from supervision or intervention due to his assessed low risk of re-offending.

41. I do not accept that opinion of him at all. I think it is based on false representations by him to her and I do not consider that there is a low risk re-offending at all. In fact I would have thought if anything there is a high risk of re-offending. I think that because he has done nothing whatever to express any remorse or any contrition. He has done nothing whatever to try and repay any of the monies and when the matter came to Court he sought to challenge four of the investors, not before me but before a Magistrate.

42. The plain fact of the matter is that this scheme, just as with Mr Madoff's much bigger scheme, is a big sham. At no stage did he invest in anything, and at no stage did he intend to invest in anything. His only intention was to deceive people into giving him money by making false representations of wealth and success. It is easy, as I have said, nowadays, these years afterwards, to look back and say how would anyone be taken in by this. The plain fact is that people like the current offender have great skill, charm and ability to persuade, and people who are normally businesslike, calm and considered in their approach are taken in. Any of the current investors who feel bad about it should realise, and they can if they want to, look up what Mr Madoff did in New York and realise the sorts of people who were taken in by Mr Madoff. People who had put in millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, believing they were going to get a magnificent return and these were people of considerable wealth and ability.

43. Ponzi schemes must be actively discouraged by the courts and those who engage in them can expect to receive harsh sentences. This man must be sentenced for what he did. He was not a trustee for anybody, he did not breach trust in the normal sense. He betrayed friendship, he made false claims, he caused financial ruin and enormous hardship. His victims are human beings and in many ways false representations like this to ordinary citizens are far worse than false representations of this type made to large companies that also happens from time to time. I am aware myself of two individuals who managed to persuade very large companies to make over very large cheques to them on false representations, I am talking of tens of millions of dollars. So these sorts of people can operate anywhere and at any level.

44. He has to be dealt with for what he did and not for what anybody else did. But an element of the sentence has to be the protection of the community. On occasions that requires a longer sentence than would be imposed otherwise. I think it is called for in this case because I see not the slightest evidence that he has any appreciation of the damage and destruction he has caused or any concern about what has happened to anybody.

45. There of course must always be some hope of rehabilitation. But as I have said before, I do not accept the report of the Probation and Parole Office because I think it is based on their acceptance of false representations made by him. Ultimately I have come to a conclusion that I should impose on him a sentence that may be seen to be one of the toughest sentences ever imposed and that is a sentence of ten years imprisonment with a six year non-parole period. I am imposing that because general deterrence requires that people be discouraged actively from engaging in these schemes. Individual deterrence requires that he be prevented from engaging in these schemes for a considerable period. The protection of the community requires that he not be able to do it for a considerable period. The possibility of rehabilitation must always be there but I think it is very low down on the list. Anybody who engages in conduct of this type has a lot of work to do to rehabilitate himself and rehabilitation in my opinion only comes if he does something effective to repay the people whose money he took and misused.

46. The principle of totality requires that I must look at sentences that are imposed and ensure that in an overall sense no sentence is too large. It requires that I must combine some of the sentences to ensure that that occurs, otherwise I would be putting him there for too long. In America that principle does not apply and you can put people away for as long as you like. But we do not impose in this country 100 year sentences or 150 year sentences. It is absurd.

47. He has to be given the opportunity of rehabilitation. As a white collar offender the very distinct probability is that at an early time he will be transferred to a minimum security institution and indeed I am going to recommend that that be done and to be classified as soon as possible with a view to being moved to a such an institution. Ultimately depending on how he behaves himself he can be given weekend leave and even leave during the week to work. That depends on him, I have no say in classifications and I am certainly not recommending that anything be done other than that he be classified as soon as possible. I direct that these sentencing remarks be sent to the Director of Classifications of the Department of Corrective Services so that that department can move to deal with his classification as soon as possible.

48. The individual sentences that I impose are as follows. Count 1, I have decided I should impose a maximum sentence for the offence committed against Mrs Matt of five years, but reduce it by ten per cent to four years and six months because of his plea of guilty. I impose the harsher sentence for that one only because he used her as an unwilling or an unwitting accomplice. He used her to recruit others. She did not know anything about what he was up to, and I think that should be recognised. For the other sentences in the main they will be three years and seven months or thereabouts. For counts 7, 8 and 9 they will be a straight four years. As will be seen that is done to ensure that in an overall sense a greater sentence is not imposed than it should be imposed. So count 1 will go from 16 December 2011 to 15 June 2016. Count 2 will go from 16 December 2012 to 21 July 2016. Count 3 will go from 16 December 2013 to 21 July 2017. Count 4 will go from 16 December 2014 to 21 July 2018. Count 5 will go from 16 December 2015 to 21 July 2019. Count 6 will go from 16 December 2016 to 21 July 2020. Count 7, 8 and 9 will all go from 16 December 2017 to 15 December 2021, they will be concurrent with each other. There will be a non-parole period of six years, that will go from 16 December 2011 to 15 December 2017. He will be eligible for parole on that day.

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Decision last updated: 15 March 2016