By JESSE GRAHAM
HEALESVILLE’S former Chamber of Commerce president will appeal a nine-month jail sentence for theft and deception handed down at the Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 4 May.
Graham Taylor, 60, was handed four month and nine month jail sentences, to be served concurrently, after pleading guilty to 48 counts of fraud and deception.
He appeared in court on Wednesday for sentencing, after pleading guilty in a hearing on 6 April, bringing character references and community members for support.
Marysville’s Bruce Ackerman told the court about Taylor’s work in the community after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.
He said Taylor was “unselfish” in his work, running events for the Marysville Lions Club and Coldstream’s Rochford Wines, often working into the next day to pack up said events.
“We often wondered if he ever slept,” Mr Ackerman said.
He said Taylor had put “time and effort … into trying to rebuild our social and economic well-being” after the bushfires, and added that his behaviour was “most out of character”.
But prosecuting officer Leading Senior Constable Bianca Smith cross-examined Mr Ackerman, and said the groups Taylor had worked for had also been the ones he had stolen money from.
“All these places he’s been doing good work for, he’s been stealing from, according to the current charges,” Leading Sen Const Smith said.
Leading Sen Const Smith noted that Taylor also had a previous conviction for fraud and deception, after keeping cash payments and using customers’ credit cards in 2006 to steal $17,800 from a conference centre where he was property manager.
His recent charges were in relation to stealing money from people’s credit cards; stealing money and wine from Rochford, where he worked; using credit cards falsely to purchase concert tickets and stealing $1110 from the Healesville Chamber of Commerce, where he was president until his arrest in 2015.
He used credit cards 33 times for cash advances, and on one occasion stole wine from Rochford for a victim, to maintain the guise of having used their credit card legitimately.
Taylor also stole $2860 from the Marysville Lions Club, where he was president from 2013/14, which was given to him to pay a contractor; he kept and spent the money.
The Mail reported last month that an agreement had been made between Taylor and the club to repay the money, and that his 48 charges did not include one for the Lions club theft.
Taylor said that he had visited his GP, and that the “root cause“ of his thefts was “an obsession with gambling”, and said that he was seeing a psychologist every fortnight for treatment of his depression.
He said he felt like he “couldn’t ask people” to supply character references, following reports of his pleading guilty last month.
Magistrate Jillian Crowe noted Taylor had provided a letter from his psychologist, and his latest character references, but made an order for restitution of the money and handed down a jail term.
“In these circumstances, you stole from your employer – you were a trusted employee, you were obviously a very valuable person in the community I accept that,” she said.
“You have been a good community member, in terms of assisting … but you’ve also been very dishonest and … ripped off those very organisations that you’ve been assisting.”
Taylor was sentenced to four months in jail for his theft charges, with nine months in jail for his deception charges, to be served concurrently.
Magistrate Crowe told Taylor that, if not for his guilty plea, he would have received six months for the theft charges, and a year for the deception charges.
Taylor was also ordered to repay $2400 to Rochford Wines; $10,959.80 to American Express; $2195 to the National Australia Bank (NAB); $2200 to ANZ; and $1674 to Westpac.
A Magistrates’ Court of Victoria spokesperson confirmed later that day that Taylor had lodged an appeal, and had been given appeal bail as a result.
