Former Carlton and Port Adelaide player Nick Stevens is accused of cheating families tens of thousands of dollars for Polishes they never received.
The 45-year-old is confronted with 18 fraud-related costs, including obtaining a financial benefit through deception, after they reportedly accepted $ 170,000 of six families to deliver swimming pools and install them with property in the Mildura region.
Public Prosecutor Toni Stokes told Victoria’s County Court in Melbourne that the families were left with both “[not permitted] Swimming pools, gigantic holes in their backyard, or nothing at all “.
Mr. Stevens has not guilty of all charges.
On Wednesday, the municipal building of Mildura Rural City Council Mark Yanstes told the court that Mr Stevens called the council in January 2018 to ask if he needed a permit to install swimming pools after accepting money from different customers.
The court heard that Mr Yantses told him: “Every swimming pool in Victoria needs a building permit.”
The case is dealt with in the County Court of Victoria. ((ABC News: Danielle Bonica))
The court heard that the building possibilities of the Council came across various jobs in 2017 and 2018, where homeowners had signed an application for building permits, convincing that they had done the right one and followed the council rules.
It was claimed that these applications for building permits were linked to a company that was run by a private building meter, but that the surveyor had not received the paperwork before the jobs started.
Deputy municipal building meter Richard Rowe told the court that the council was forced to close various work locations of Mr Stevens.
He said that polar permits could not be issued afterwards, so families had to demolish the pools or leave them as they were half -completed.
The court heard that at least one family told Mr. Stevens that their swimming pool was being removed.
‘Every week … another delay’
Mildura -Man Ben Knight told the court that he paid Mr. Stevens more than $ 30,000 for a swimming pool that he never received.
He said that Mr. Stevens apologized for why he could not install the swimming pool, including bad weather.
“Every week there was another delay … Until the end of January when it all ended,” Mr. Knight told the court.
“A reason was that it had rained too much, it was too wet; one was that the truck that supplies the swimming pool was demolished; there were current legal battles with leisure pools.
“Just about everything you could imagine.”
Mr. Knight told the court that Mr Stevens gave him a reimbursement of $ 10,000 in February 2018.
“I then sent Nick and asked for the rest of the excellent balance … There was no answer, so I knew writing was on the wall,” he said.
Nick Stevens is confronted with nine costs, including obtaining a financial benefit through deception. ((Monkey: Tracey Nearmy))
A ‘technical’ matter
In her opening argument, Mrs. Stokes told the court that Mr Stevens had a landscape architecture in the Mildura area at the time of the alleged offense in 2017 and 2018.
She said Mr. Stevens was in a dealer agreement with a company called Leisure Pools.
The deal was for leisure pools to deliver the pools, and Mr Stevens was intended to install them, the court heard.
In his opening address, defense lawyer Jim Stavris told the jury that “in some respects it would be a technical matter”, encouraging them to pay attention to chronology and data in the proof of witnesses in the process.
The trial for Judge Fran Dalziel continues.
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