DPP v Sackl [2025] VCC 402

1. Before turning to the specifics of your offending, I will first set out some context which is necessary to understand your pleas.
2. On 6 September 2017, you initiated proceedings in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia: you were the applicant; you sought property and parenting orders under the Family Law Act 1975.[3] I will call this the Family Court proceeding.
3. There were two respondents to your applications.
4. The first respondent was Shu Huo LIAO, your former de facto wife. Your relationship spanned the years 2009 to the end of your cohabitation in July 2017.
5. The second respondent was Yitong TANG, who is your current partner. You met Ms Tang in 2013, started living together in 2015 and married in September 2016. Though you have separated for periods, the Court found that you and Ms Tang had never 'finally separated'. You are currently now in a relationship.
6. In the Family Court proceeding, the Court was required to make determinations of the marital asset pool, the liabilities of the parties, and the parties' relative contributions to the asset pool.
7. To facilitate the Court making those determinations properly, you were under an obligation to make complete disclosure of your assets.
8. On 7 August 2020, his Honour Judge McNab handed down his judgement. One of the findings his Honour made was that you had not provided proper or complete financial statements. He also found that you did not make full or frank disclosure of your financial position, and that you were in breach of court orders obliging you to do so.
9. Judge McNab held that 'a major focus of the proceeding' before him was what had happened to $9m said to have been received by you as the result of your sale of a business called 'Young Media'. His Honour found that you had not provided a satisfactory explanation for where that money had gone. Finally, the Court found that you had deliberately falsified documents and given false evidence, and had failed to make disclosure, the cumulative effect of all that was that the Court could not make a determination of the marital asset pool.
10. It is my understanding that the matter was then referred by the Court's registrar to the Australian Federal Police for investigation. That investigation culminated in your plea in the case now before me.

1. Turning now to the specific content of your offending. On 10 August 2018 and 29 April 2019, you affirmed several false matters in two affidavits filed with the Court. You also gave false oral evidence in Court on 29 April 2019. These occasions form the basis of the rolled-up Charge 1 - giving false testimony.

1. Turning first to the affidavit bearing the date of 10 August 2018.
2. On this date, you affirmed an affidavit that contained information regarding the sale of the company 'Young Media', which you owned.
3. The relevant representations appear at paragraphs 22 to 25 of that affidavit. Specifically, you lied about the following matters:

(a) the timing of the sale of Young Media, and the receipt of proceeds of sale;

(b) that you had obtained documents to verify the funds received from the sale of Young Media;

(c) that your Westpac Rewards Saver Account ('Westpac account') had a balance of $4.2m in August 2013, which constituted part of the proceeds of sale from the company; and

(d) that the Westpac account transaction summary, showing a balance of $4.2m in August 2013 was a true copy of the original.

1. Subsequent police investigation revealed that these were false representations.
2. A true copy of your Westpac account, which I note was ultimately subpoenaed by the first respondent in the Family Court proceeding, showed that two deposits of over $2m each were made on 8 August 2017, and not August 2013. Further, the withdrawal of these proceeds also occurred on 8 August 2017 in three transactions, two withdrawals by electronic transfer, and one by cheque.

1. Turning now to the content of the affidavit dated 29 April 2019.
2. On 29 April you affirmed a second affidavit in the same proceeding, this one in response to one filed by the first respondent. Attached to the affidavit were two exhibits: 'JS-8', an email chain said to have transpired between you and your accountant Mr Newlands, and 'JS-9', a copy of a Westpac statement you claimed Mr Newlands had sent you on your request.
3. The false representations appear at paragraphs 48 to 56 of that second affidavit where you stated that:

(a) all the documents you sent to your lawyers were sourced by your accounts team, who had full access to your bank account;

(b) you had asked members of your accounts team to obtain the bank statement that showed the proceeds of sale of Young Media coming into Australia;

(c) on 31 May 2018, you asked your accountant, Mr Newlands, to 'send Westpac statement' as soon as possible by email;

(d) the email chain with Mr Newlands exhibited to your affidavit and marked as 'JS-8', was a true copy of the original;

(e) the Westpac bank statement exhibited to your affidavit and marked 'JS-9, was a true copy of what Mr Newlands sent to you; and

(f) you did not alter the year on the Westpac statement and did not cause any other person to do so.

1. Turning now to the content of your oral evidence dated 29 April 2019.
2. On the same day, you gave oral evidence in the Federal Court and Family Court of Australia before his Honour Judge McNab. Under a legal obligation to tell the truth, you falsely said that the contents of your affidavit that you signed that day were true.
3. You then made the following additional and false representations to the Court in your oral evidence:

(a) that the sale of the Young Media company occurred prior to August 2011;

(b) you provided the Court with a different account regarding the origin of the $4m, stating the funds were because of a banking transaction error due to refinance;

(c) that members of your accounting team, including Mr Newlands, had authority to transact on your Westpac account; and

(d) that you had asked Mr Newlands by telephone to obtain and provide you with a copy of your bank statement.

1. Later, the police investigation revealed that the true copy of the email between you and Mr Newlands on 31 May 2018 in fact related to discussions about the payment of an account which was quite unrelated to the Family Court proceedings, and which did not refer to your Westpac account.
2. Further, Westpac Bank records obtained by the investigators showed that you were the only person authorised to make transactions for that account.
3. In addition, in your evidence on 29 April 2019, you accepted that the Westpac account statement that you relied upon had been fabricated, as the date had been amended to reflect that the transactions occurred in 2013 rather than 2017. You continued to place reliance on it in the Family Court proceeding.
4. The Westpac statement had been fabricated by you in an effort to mislead the Court about your true financial position and, as a corollary of that, the value of the marital asset pool. I note the falsification of the bank statements ('JS-9') and emails ('JS-8') forms the basis of the s 16BA scheduled charge,[4] and as a consequence, those matters will be taken into account when passing sentence on the primary charge pursuant to s 16BA Crimes Act 1914.[5]

1. The matter was investigated by the Australian Federal Police. You were arrested and charged on 23 August 2023. You exercised your right to silence at interview.

Nature and gravity of the offending and sentencing principles

1. Turning now to my assessment of the nature and gravity of your offending and the sentencing principles that I must apply.
2. The principles to be applied in sentencing for the crime of perjury, a different charge, but they do guide my assessment of the nature and circumstances of your offending.
3. The administration of justice depends fundamentally on the parties to Court proceedings giving truthful evidence and introducing documentary evidence that is genuine.
4. Providing false information in any form to a Court in a contested proceeding strikes at the heart of the administration of justice. It introduces chaos and uncertainty. It makes proceedings lengthier and more complex, and it threatens the legitimacy and authority of Court determinations. In short, it cannot be tolerated.
5. Your affront to the administration of justice was not a one-off event. It took place on two dates, separated by eight months. It was considered. It extended to both the provision of false testimony in affidavit form, as well as false oral evidence.
6. After the discovery of your first falsehood, which I note the respondent had to prove by the issuing of subpoena to a bank, you might have taken responsibility and retreated. Instead, you doubled down. You attempted to avoid responsibility for the first falsehood by adding others, compounding the original lies with more false statements in both written and oral form.
   1. In your affidavit of 29 April 2017 you told multiple further falsehoods, in an attempt to shift the responsibility to another person or other people, being your accounts team, and then those falsehoods had to be met by further evidence being obtained again to uncover the lies being told by you.
   2. Mr Tovey of counsel, who appeared for you on your plea, argued that the fact that your lies were so easily discoverable should reduce your culpability for the offending. It is true that your falsehoods were easily discoverable, but yours were not lies in any context, they were told in Court proceedings invoked by you when you were under a very specific and serious legal obligation to tell the truth.
   3. While I accept Mr Tovey's submission that these acts by you took place in the context of personal chaos, this was chaos largely authored by you.
   4. I find that you did what you did in an effort, naïve and wishful, to gain a financial advantage by diminishing the valuation of the asset pool and so to benefit personally.
   5. The charge you have pleaded to is a rolled-up charge, encompassing the two dates of affidavit and then the oral testimony.
   6. The creation of the false documents, the bank statement and the falsified email chain present before me in the s 16BA scheduled offence,[6] were created to avoid responsibility for the first false affidavit and make the offending that I must sentence you for more serious. Altering any document is a dangerous and dishonest thing to do, this part of your offending adds another layer of my assessment to your culpability on the primary charge. It makes your conduct more considered, more planned, more intentional.
   7. The schedule offence casts a different and more serious light on the principal offence and informs the need for specific deterrence on that principal charge.[7] I am careful to recognise the schedule offence's integration with the offending on the principal charge. You will not be doubly punished, but the schedule offending will, to a modest degree, require an increase in the sentence on the principal charge.
   8. I find ultimately that your moral culpability in your offending is high, and your offending is both persistent and serious.

1. You fall to be sentenced on this charge as a person with no prior criminal history.
2. I pause to note only that you were, after your commission of these offences, sentenced for charges in this Court before his Honour Judge Hannebery on

3 June 2022. Those offences were committed between 13 November 2012 and 22 May 2013, five years before your offending on the matters before me. 3. At the time you committed the offending before me, you had been interviewed (2014) and charged (2017) for those offences to which you later pleaded guilty before Judge Hannebery. That offending involved your giving false or misleading information contrary to the Migration Act.[8] You were running a business assisting visa applicants in the preparation of their applications. Your offending in that case has some similar qualities to the case before me in that it involved your telling falsehoods in circumstances where you were obliged to be truthful and where you stood to gain financially. I was informed on your plea that you were still subject to the Community Corrections Order which was imposed, with outstanding community work hours. 4. I am very careful not to treat those matters as prior offending for this case. They will however be a matter that I do have regard to. You are not to be considered a person of 'otherwise good character' and I will place some additional weight on the role for specific deterrence on this sentence. Even though you were charged with the Migration Act offences at the time of your commission of these offences,[9] you proceeded to go headlong into fresh offending in a similar category.

1. You are 36 years old. At the time of your offending, you were between 29 and 30.
2. You are the eldest of two siblings. Your father is an architect, and your mother previously ran a catering business. You recall your childhood as a 'happy one' and 'supportive' and free from many boundaries. You learnt the importance of structure and punctuality from your grandparents, with whom you shared a strong relationship. Your parents divorced when you were about 10 years old. You lived with your mother and continued to have contact with your father.
3. Initially you attended Carey Grammar School until your parents' separation, you then moved to Hawthorn Secondary College. It was there that you suffered severe bullying, including assaults. You went to Wesley Grammar in Year 11 and 12 as a result, where your school fees were funded by your own work and financial support from a family friend.
4. You finished school in 2006 and founded the company Young Melbourne Pty Ltd, a 'classifieds and deals' website for businesses, aimed to target a 'Gen Y audience'. This business would later become 'Young Media' and sell for a very significant sum.
5. Between 2013 and 2018 you were involved with a number of businesses with varied entrepreneurial pursuits. These included software development, employment services, training services and the production of animal feed.
6. You entered a relationship with Ms Liao around 2011. Together you purchased the restaurant she was working in. You have two children together, M and S. Your relationship with Ms Liao became fractured after M was born. You recall there were periods of frequent arguments and separation, followed by reconciliation.
7. Around 2014 you met your current partner, Ms Tang with whom you also share two children, H and L.
8. Not long after L was born in 2017, you and Ms Liao formalised your separation. It was in this context that your relationship became acrimonious. You were prevented from seeing M and S. You commenced the Family Court proceeding that I have already described. I note that due to the Family Court proceeding your business interests were placed into administration, partly due to the freezing orders made over your assets.
9. In December 2020 you were declared bankrupt. In May 2022 you were banned by ASIC from managing a corporation until November 2025.

1. You have pleaded guilty. This is a very significant matter to be applied in the mitigation of your sentence.
2. There was some dispute about the timing of your plea in terms of its value. The prosecution submitted the case effectively dragged in the Magistrates' Court. However, I do not find there is any profit in attributing blame for delay between charge and the resolution of your case. I note that you pleaded to a less serious charge than that which was originally prosecuted, which I understand was an attempt to pervert the course of justice charge.
3. No witnesses were cross examined either in the Magistrates' Court or in this Court. I treat your plea as both very early and very useful.

1. There has been a very lengthy delay between the Family Court's referral for investigation which took place about 16 September 2020 and the sentence that I impose today. This is even longer if the dates of your offending (2017 and 2018) are recalled.
2. As I have said, the referral for investigation took place in 2020, but it was not until 2 May 2023 that the investigation commenced with, as I understand it, the execution of a warrant by the AFP. It was not until 23 August 2023 that you were interviewed and charged. During that time, given the findings of the Court in the Family Court proceedings, you were no doubt in a state of anxious anticipation of possible prosecution.
3. The explanation provided for that initial delay was 'the investigation was suspended for periods of time due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the re-direction of AFP resources to maintaining public safety and other high priority investigations'.
4. Whatever the cause of that delay, I do accept that this period of time was a period of uncertain suspense which I will treat as an aspect of punishment already served prior to the sentence that I will impose.
5. The application of the second limb of delay, going to rehabilitation, is also to be applied in your case insofar as you now have apparently been able to achieve some significant stability in your personal circumstances both professional and private.

1. I am obliged to take into account the probable effect of any sentence or order under consideration and what effect it would have on any of your family and dependants.[10] I received a number of character references on your plea. You have loyal and supportive people at your side. Two of those references were authored by your former partner Ms Liao, and your current partner Ms Tang. It is clear that your imprisonment would have a negative impact on your children. No further detail was given on that issue, so I am unable to give it great weight, but I do take the impact on your children into account.

1. I must assess your prospects of rehabilitation. I accept that your earlier matrimonial acrimony has now settled, the four children of the two relationships now know one another. You are no longer running a company but rather work in a role to support a company of which your wife is a director.
2. You have previously demonstrated much capacity for enterprise and an ability to create viable and profitable businesses. You have though lacked, however, the caution, good judgment and integrity that needs to attend enterprise. It seems though that you have more recently been able to work in what was described by your counsel as 'more sustainable' ways.
3. You retain the support of your partner, and you have been able to reconcile with your former partner in a way that supports your relationships with your children. I cautiously arrive at a conclusion that if you continue your current trajectory, you will not need to come before a court again.

1. I will impose a sentence that is of a severity appropriate in all the circumstances, taking into account the matters listed in s 16A(2) that are relevant and known.[11]
2. There is a strong need for denunciation and general deterrence in this case. The consequences for you need to resonate through parties involved in or potentially involved in any court proceeding.
3. You must also be punished for what you did, and I have concluded that there is some degree of a need for specific deterrence too.

1. I was guided in this case by the helpful provision of a number of sentences for like offending, though there is nothing on this particular charge by way of intermediate appellant guidance.
2. In the cases before me,[12] the charge of giving false evidence is often the accompanying charge to a more serious deception or similar offence, making even comparison between the cases in lower courts particularly difficult.
3. I have read the cases provided by the parties. None of them is particularly like yours and, in any event, I am obliged to do individual justice, but I sentence you in that broad landscape. The cases range from recognisance release orders with immediate release to the imposition of a head sentence and a non-parole period, but again, the comparison of those cases to yours is a fraught one.
4. I remind myself in this case of the maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

1. Your counsel submitted that taking into account each of the matters before me, particularly delay and the lack of need for specific deterrence, an appropriate disposition was the imposition of a recognisance release order which allowed for your immediate release. With that submission I note that it was uncontroversial in this case that a sentence of imprisonment was the only appropriate disposition.
2. Ms Karamicov, who appeared for the Director of Public Prosecutions, submitted that while a recognisance release order was the appropriate structure, the sentencing purposes require some time in custody actually served before release was required in this case.
3. I accept that submission. In the end, I find the need for deterrence of this behaviour, particularly the deterrence of participants in court proceedings from advancing falsehoods in their evidence, in combination with what I have found to be offending that is both persistent deeply serious, to require some portion of the term of imprisonment to be served immediately before release on a recognisance release order.
4. Having regard to the gravity of your offending and taking into account the matters mitigation of your sentence, I reach the conclusion, pursuant to s 17A of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), that the only available sentence is imprisonment. I will order part of that imprisonment to be served before release on a recognisance release order.

1. So, stand up for me if you will please, Mr Sackl.
2. On Charge 1 you are convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of

18 months to be served by way of a recognisance release order. 3. Pursuant to s 20(1)(b) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), I order that you be released after serving six months of that term, on giving recognisance in the amount of $2,000 and upon your undertaking to comply with the condition:

(a) To be of good behaviour for a period of three years.

1. I am going to restate that in simpler terms, 18 months is the sentence, but you serve six months before being released. Then the remaining 12 months are, in effect, suspended for three years on your undertaking to be of good behaviour and not get into any other trouble. If you do reoffend in that time, it is possible that you are brought back and you might need to serve the remaining unserved portion of that sentence.

1. Pursuant to s 6AAA of the Sentencing Act,[13] had you not pleaded guilty, but been found guilty after trial, I would have imposed a head sentence of three years and two months, with a non-parole period of two years.
2. Thank you, take a seat. Ms Karamicov, I understand that your instructors have provided, or will provide, a draft recognisance release order.
3. MS KARAMICOV: I understand one has been provided.
4. HER HONOUR: Has been provided, thank you, my staff are nodding. Are there any other orders sought or are there any orders that are unclear?
5. MS KARAMICOV: No
6. HER HONOUR: All right. Procedurally, just remind me what needs to take place now in terms of the recognisance release. I understand Mr Sackl - does he need to take advice and sign it?
7. MS KARAMICOV: Yes, that's correct.
8. HER HONOUR: Yes, all right.
9. MS KARAMICOV: So, he has to sign it and then of course Your Honour or a Registrar can sign it.
10. HER HONOUR: Yes, all right. So, what I will do is - - -
11. MS KARAMICOV: So, Your Honour's - sorry, Your Honour's associate can sign it in place of Your Honour physically signing it.
12. HER HONOUR: All right.
13. MS KARAMICOV: On the document.
14. HER HONOUR: No, but not - - -
15. MS KARAMICOV: But that's on the recognisance section.
16. HER HONOUR: I see.
17. MS KARAMICOV: Then there is the actual order that of course Your Honour has to sign, yes.
18. HER HONOUR: All right, yes, and I think the role for the associate is to witness the signature of Mr Sackl on it.
19. MS KARAMICOV: Correct, yes.
20. HER HONOUR: All right. Is there anything I have missed in the orders?
21. MS KARAMICOV: No.
22. HER HONOUR: It is all clear?
23. MS KARAMICOV: Yes.
24. HER HONOUR: What I will do then is stand down briefly and get the paperwork produced to reflect the sentence.
25. MS KARAMICOV: Yes.
26. HER HONOUR: Then I will return to the Bench and make sure Mr Sackl has had a moment to take advice from his barrister.
27. MS KARAMICOV: Yes.
28. HER HONOUR: And I will confirm the order then.
29. MS KARAMICOV: Thank you, Your Honour.
30. HER HONOUR: Thank you.
31. (Short adjournment.)
32. HER HONOUR: All right. I see, Mr Tovey, that your client has signed the recognisance, and does he understand his obligations?
33. MR TOVEY: Yes, Your Honour.
34. HER HONOUR: Good, all right, that then completes this case. Thank you for your assistance, counsel.
35. MS KARAMICOV: Thank you, Your Honour.

[1] Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) ('Crimes Act') s 35.

[7] Attorney-General's Application Under s 37 of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (No 1 of 2002) (2002) 56 NSWLR 146 ('A-G's Application').

[12] DPP v Foster [2017] VCC 1397; R v Shaw [2003] VCC 03-237; R v Karageorge [1998] NSWSC 70036-97; Riley v The Queen [1997] WASCA 155-1996; R v Gelbak [1997] VCC 9-197; R v Sutton [1995] SASC 399-95; R v Patterson [1999] WASDC 1525-99.