A former Melbourne socialite who spent more than a year in prison for evading $1.73 million in tax has had her conviction overturned in the Supreme Court of Appeal and been acquitted of all 10 dishonesty charges.
Simone Semmens, 64, represented herself during the successful appeal in Victoria’s highest court, where she squared off against one of the state’s most formidable barristers, Paul Holdenson, KC, acting for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
The former Channel Seven newsreader said she felt vindicated by the judgment, but remains angry about the initial investigation by the Australian Tax Office and the conduct of prosecutors during her original trial in the County Court of Victoria.
“This case has sucked up 15 years of my life that I will never get back and has caused untold misery and harm along the way,” she said.
Semmens first came to the attention of the ATO in 2011 during an audit. Her company Semco Developments Pty Ltd had collapsed the year before with massive debts and was the subject of several lawsuits.
The ATO and Australian Federal Police raided Semmens’ Toorak home in 2013, and she was arrested while trying to board a flight to the United States in 2015.
In 2019, a jury found her guilty on 10 charges of dishonestly causing a loss to the Commonwealth by repeatedly ignoring advice from accountants and bank staff that GST was owed on the transfer of 10 properties between 2005 and 2011.
Semmens bought a Toorak home for $1.1 million, purchased the Portsea mansion Noorah for $7.5 million and paid $7.8 million for the historic Rosecraddock estate in Caulfield North.
She had Rosecraddock subdivided into seven properties, demolished the Toorak residence and built two apartments, and had two additional homes built on the Portsea clifftop.
When Semmens was handed a custodial sentence in 2019, County Court judge Scott Johns admonished the former beauty queen turned property developer for her “stubbornness and intransigence”.
Johns said her fall from grace had been “dramatic”.
“You’ve scaled heights you probably only dreamed of as a 16 or 17-year-old trying to make your way in the world. No doubt the way down has not been easy. It’s in no small part to your resilience and resourcefulness that I consider your prospects for rehabilitation to be excellent.”
Semmens told The Age her decision to mount an appeal was made the same day she was found guilty.
“I struggled every day while I was in jail with the unfairness of being incarcerated for an offence against the laws of the Commonwealth that I didn’t commit, but I have no complaint about the staff at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre or the women,” she said.
“I kept very much to myself, I didn’t interfere in other people’s affairs, and frankly I focused on my appeals material while I was in prison.”
Upon her release in August 2020, Semmens received pro bono help from barrister and chartered tax adviser Michael Bearman before immersing herself in case law.
During a three-day hearing before the Court of Appeals last month, Semmens submitted that three “irregularities” in the original trial had caused the jury to be misled.
In the judgment, justices David Beach, Maree Kennedy and Terry Forrest found Semmens’ flawed trial had “given rise to a substantial miscarriage of justice”.
However, the appeals panel found the evidence in the case was still “sufficient to justify” a conviction of Semmens.
“In our view, the interests of justice do not require another lengthy and complex trial to be held in the circumstances of this particular case,” the judgment read.
Semmens could now launch a civil claim for compensation, after concerns were raised during the appeal about the ATO’s conduct.
“I do have serious complaints about how the investigation and the prosecution were conducted, including complaints about the way the evidence of the prosecution’s key witness was gathered. And I am considering ways to best ventilate those complaints,” Semmens said.
“I’m now going to take some time and think about what happens next. I’m going to work to rebuild my life and spend more time with my kids.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
