Police v Valent [2025] ACTMC 12

1. As to the last of these positions, the Prosecution nevertheless submits that it is implausible that the transfers were for the purposes of saving for a car given the structure and frequency of the transfers, which involved 'a certain randomness'. The Prosecution submits that, if I did find that the Defendant was saving for a car:

(a) the evidence is insufficient to support the proposition that the end goal was that the car would be jointly shared by him and the complainant; and

(b) even if that was the end goal, the conduct would still be both dishonest and deceptive because the complainant had not consented to the transfer of her money to be used for the Defendant's contribution to the joint purchase.

1. The Defendant's position is that the nature of the evidence does not allow findings of fact on relevant issues to be made with any confidence. The Defendant submits that "it is simply too difficult to ascertain to a criminal standard, during the material period, what the complainant said and thought, and how the defendant, in kind, responded".
2. The Defendant points to the following issues, in particular, as raising a doubt as to these matters:

(a) the fact that the Defendant, a 74 year old man with very little resources of his own, did not spend any of the money that was transferred into his account - the Defendant says that this supports his account, that he and the complainant were saving to buy a car together;

(b) the fact that the complainant was mentally unwell during the relevant period, which impacted her "world view", affects the complainant's reliability, particularly in circumstance where she had a lack of specific recollection as to whether she made the impugned transactions prior to her hospitalisation. This, the Defendant submits, reflects a degree of confusion and conjecture infecting the entirety of the complainant's evidence. The Defendant points to the many times in her evidence that the complainant answered questions in either the hypothetical or subjective ("I would have", "I wouldn't have", "I might have"). The Defendant also points to the antipathy that the complainant displayed towards the Defendant as further impacting the credibility of her evidence;

(c) the Defendant also submits that his record of interview with police is consistent with the complainant's evidence (and with his innocence).

1. As I will explain, I agree that the evidence establishes the possibility that the Defendant was saving to buy a car with the complainant. However, I do not accept that they saved together, or that the complainant gave money to the Defendant (or authorised the Defendant to take money from, or hold money for, her) for that purpose.
2. I agree that the fact that the complainant was mentally unwell during the relevant period is something that needs to be kept in mind in assessing the credibility of the complainant's evidence but, again for reasons which I will explain, I consider that the complainant was generally a credible witness and that I can rely on the evidence that she gave. On the other hand, I find that the Defendant's statements to police and to Ms Valent lack credibility.
3. In terms of the various positions advanced by the Prosecution, the Defendant submits that:

(a) it is not possible to exclude the possibility that the complainant made the transfers prior to her hospitalisation (to, for example, reward the Defendant for his emotional and physical support, assisting him to save towards a joint car, and putting her money beyond the reaches of her family - all being things that might have seemed rational to the complainant at the time) - particularly where the apparent randomness of the transfers and the retention of the money by the Defendant seem inconsistent with him having made the transfers;

(b) the evidence does not establish that the Defendant knew or suspected that the complainant did not genuinely want him to hold the funds; and

(c) there is little evidence to establish that the complainant's consent for any transfers she made was vitiated by her illness and that the Defendant knew this to be true. The Defendant notes that there were no legal restrictions on the complainant dealing with her money as she pleased, nor any evidence that anyone raised concerns with him about the complainant's ability to operate autonomously prior to her hospitalisation. The Defendant submits that it is plausible that he, perhaps subconsciously accepting of a reality that he desired (sharing his life with the complainant) and which he thought was real, even if others may have taken a different view, believed that the complainant was at her "most real" when not taking her medication.

1. As I have already indicated, I agree with the Defendant that there is little evidence to establish that the complainant's consent for any transfers was vitiated by her illness. However, for reasons which are set out later in these reasons, I find that it was the Defendant who made each of the impugned transfers. In my view, it is possible to exclude the possibility that the complainant made the transfers prior to her hospitalisation because no explanation, other than that it was the Defendant who made all of the transfers, and that he knew he did not have authority to make the transfers, is rationally compatible with the circumstances.
2. The Defendant submits that, if I accept that the complainant made the transfers prior to her hospitalisation, or if the Defendant made the transfers honestly, the Court would find it difficult to impute constructive dishonesty to the Defendant in making the post-admission transfers. The Defendant submits that, while other people in the Defendant's position may have queried whether it was appropriate to continue to give effect to the complainant's wishes, that is not the relevant test. The Defendant submits that, in circumstances where the complainant distrusted Ms Valent and Mr Falzarano (the complainant's brother), he may have believed that the complainant wanted him to put the funds out of their reach, and therefore may have felt compelled to make the post-admission transfers.
3. As I have noted, I am satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that it was the Defendant who made each of the transfers. As I will explain, while I am also satisfied that he largely did so for his own purposes, not in the interests of the complainant (or in what he might have thought were the interests of the complainant), I have doubt in relation to some of the transfers. I also have doubt in relation to the two cash withdrawals that were made.

Parties' submissions in relation to queries raised by the Court

1. Having considered the parties' written submissions, I sought further submissions from the parties in relation to a number of queries. In doing so, I set out possible findings I might make, namely that:

(a) the Defendant opened a Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) account, ending in numbers 7104, for the purpose of saving for a car for himself;

(b) the Defendant believed, at some point, that the complainant would buy a car with him if he saved as much money as she had saved in her car savings account;

(c) the Defendant made all of the relevant transfers the subject of the present charges;

(d) the Defendant did so without authority (that is, not predicated on any arrangement or agreement with the complainant);

(e) the Defendant did not believe he made the transfers with authority;

(f) the Defendant's intention was to transfer the money to the CBA account ending in 7104 to save for a car, which was to be bought for himself, or jointly for himself and the complainant; and

(g) the Defendant intended to misrepresent that the money transferred and subsumed into account 7104 was his own (including to represent to the complainant, if and when the time came to purchase the car, that the money was his own).

1. The Defendant submits that the first of these findings is uncontentious and consistent with the Defendant's innocence, being that he was saving jointly with the complainant for a car.
2. The Defendant argues against the other findings, relying on his other submissions. In particular, he submits that the Court would need to be satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Defendant transferred the funds from the complainant's account for the purpose of appropriating them into his car savings account and to misrepresent the funds as his own, in order to find the Defendant guilty. He submits that, having regard to the view expressed through the possible findings, they are indispensable to a finding that the Defendant was dishonest. He accepts that, if those findings could be made, his conduct would be dishonest, however he says that there is no reasonable evidentiary basis for those findings.
3. The Defendant submits that:

(a) there is no direct evidence as to what was in the Defendant's mind, in terms of what he intended to do with the money at the time of transfer, nor as to what the Defendant would do with the money in the future - he submits that it is entirely speculative to making a finding as to how the Defendant would represent the money transfers to the complainant if confronted about them - and that, in any case, it is not the Prosecution case that the Defendant transferred money from the complainant's account with the intention of saving for a car;

(b) it is unlikely that the Defendant would have had such a plan, in circumstances where he knew that the complainant and Ms Valent could see that the transfers had been made from the complainant's account - that he could not possibly have represented the funds as his once the transfers were inevitably discovered; and

(c) given that the Defendant also spent money from his account on items that could have been of joint benefit to him and the complainant during the relevant period, it may be difficult for the Court to exclude beyond reasonable doubt that the Defendant did not have a dishonest mindset in relation to any of the transfers that led to that expenditure. In this respect, the Defendant submits that, if the Court is unable to identify which transfers are infected with doubt as to the Defendant's intention (and dishonesty) - because they may have been for a purpose that was not dishonest (at least not entirely) - the Court would need to acquit on all transfers that could possibly have an honest purpose.

1. As to the Defendant's submissions that it was never the Prosecution's case that the Defendant transferred money from the complainant's account to his with the intention of saving for a car (for himself, and not as part of an arrangement made with the complainant), that is true. However, it was the Prosecution's case (the Prosecution's Primary Submission) that the Defendant had no authority to transfer money from the complainant's account to his and that the Defendant transferred the money to his accounts intending to retain that money for his own benefit, in the knowledge that his conduct was dishonest.
2. The Prosecution did not seek to identify the ultimate purpose for the money that was transferred to the Defendant's account. Nor is that required. What the Prosecution needs to establish is that the Defendant appropriated the money, dishonestly, with the intention of permanently depriving the complainant of the money.
3. In my view, there is no unfairness to the Defendant in me considering, in assessing the Prosecution case, whether, to the extent that I find that it was the Defendant who effected the transfers, it was the Defendant's intention to purchase a car with the money, including by representing that the money was his. Such an intention would, consistently with the Prosecution case (and as conceded by the Defendant), evidence both dishonesty on the part of the Defendant and an intention to permanently deprive the complainant of the money.
4. Further, and perhaps more importantly with respect to the question of fairness, it is the Defendant's case that one possibility consistent with his innocence is that the money was transferred for the purpose of assisting the Defendant to save for a car, or to further the objective of the complainant and the Defendant jointly saving for a car. Having raised that possibility, I cannot see any unfairness in making findings as to whether there was, as the Defendant says, participation, agreement or authorisation given by the complainant for the transfers to be made for that purpose and, if not, to make consequential findings as to what that reveals as to the Defendant's intention and whether he was dishonest. The Defendant did not articulate any specific unfairness that would befall him, from the way that the hearing was run, if I made findings of the kind I articulated.
5. I also asked the parties about the possible application of s 304(2) of the Criminal Code 2002 (Criminal Code). That provision could have application in this case if it was not possible to making a finding in relation to the Defendant's intention at the time a transfer from the complainant's account was made to one of his accounts, but it was clear that he then transferred that money within his own accounts with the intention of assuming ownership of the money.
6. The parties disagreed as to whether it would be unfair for the Prosecution to rely on that provision, in circumstances where the Prosecution case was premised on the impugned transactions having been made on particular dates. While I agree with the Prosecution that the date on which the Defendant is alleged to have committed the offence is not an element of it, I agree with the Defendant that the Prosecution's case was that the offence was committed on the dates that the initial transfer of funds were made from the complainant's account to one of the Defendant's accounts.
7. I agree with the Defendant that it would be unfair to decide the case by reference to the Defendant's intention in dealing with the complainant's funds after the time he initially transferred money from the complainant's account to one of his. What he did after the initial transfer can inform my assessment of his intention at the time, but the Prosecution did not rely on that later conduct as itself establishing an element of any the offences with which the Defendant is charged.
8. I note that there were multiple sources of funds into the Defendant's CBA account that most of the transfers from the complainant's account went into during the relevant period and that the Defendant both made transfers from that account to his account ending in 7104 and made purchases of items that could have benefited the complainant. This, of course, gives rise to some complexity in assessing the Defendant's purpose in appropriating money from the complainant's account and, to the extent that that purpose was unclear, complexity in assessing the use to which he subsequently put the money (and his purpose for doing so). If the Prosecution wished to rely on s 304(2) of the Criminal Code in the circumstances of this matter, it needed to articulate at the hearing how it sought to do so.

1. Having regard to the foregoing, the key issues for resolution are:

(a) the credibility of the accounts given by the complainant and the Defendant;

(b) the nature of the financial arrangements that existing between the complainant and the Defendant during the relevant period, if any;

(c) the identity of the person who made the transfers from the complainant's account to the Defendant's accounts prior to the complainant's hospitalisation; and

(d) the purpose for which each of the transfers was made.

1. Before turning to those issues, I will briefly discuss the Defendant's and the complainant's bank statements which were tendered at the hearing. I will return to particular aspects of the bank statements later in these reasons, however I have focused my initial observations on a key aspect of the Defendant's statements, being the establishment of car savings accounts. His actions in this regard informed my assessment of the key issues I have outlined above.

1. Banks statements for accounts that were maintained by the Defendant and the complainant during the period when the impugned transactions were made (27 June to 6 August 2023) (referred to elsewhere in these reasons as "the relevant period") were tendered in evidence. They are an important source of objective evidence against which the statements of the Defendant and the complainant, as to what occurred, can be assessed.
2. At Annexure A is a table which identifies the impugned transfers and the transfers the Defendant made between his accounts in and around the relevant period. From reviewing these transactions, it is apparent that the majority of the money that was transferred from the complainant's account to the Defendant's accounts ended up in a CBA account that the Defendant set up to save for a car (which I have referred to in these reasons as the Defendant's "CBA car savings account").
3. The Defendant set up an account with Beyond Bank on 6 June 2023. He called it "Car Savings". Between 29 June 2023 and 4 July 2023, he transferred the then balance of that account to a CBA account ending in the numbers 7104, indirectly through a CBA account ending in numbers 7926 (which I have referred to in these reasons as the Defendant's "general CBA account").
4. That he intended to use account "7104" as an account in which to save for a car is confirmed by the facts that:

(a) he opened the Beyond Bank "Car Savings" account, while he was living with the complainant, to start saving for a car. He wanted to have a car savings account like the complainant had one. The complainant's evidence to this effect is consistent with the timing of the Defendant opening his Beyond Bank account and the name that he gave to that account;

(b) the Defendant told the complainant that he also had a CBA car savings account;

(c) there were two transfers from the complainant's account to account "7926" with the description "Car" (on 2 and 10 July 2023) and corresponding entries transferring the same amounts from 7926 to 7104;

(d) the amount transferred into 7104 during the relevant period is consistent with a discussion that the complainant said that she and the Defendant had, in relation to the Defendant saving as much as the complainant had saved for a new car. By the end of the period, he had saved a similar amount to the amount that the complainant had saved by the beginning of the relevant period (around $15,000).

1. The Defendant closed the Beyond Bank account prior to 19 July 2023. A transfer he made to that account on that date was returned because the account had been closed. The same thing happened on 1 August 2023.
2. As I have indicated, I will return to other aspects of my analysis of the bank statements later in my reasons.

Reliability of witnesses' evidence and the statements made by the Defendant

1. The complainant, Ms Valent, the complainant's and Defendant's son (Ashley Valent) and the complainant's brother (Tonino Falzarano) gave evidence at the hearing. To the extent that I have relied on the evidence of Ms Valent, Mr Valent and Mr Falzarano, I consider that it is reliable. I have relied on their evidence to a limited extent and the evidence that I have relied on is consistent with other evidence that I have accepted as reliable.
2. As noted already, the Defendant did not give evidence but he gave a statement to police. He also sent an email to Ms Valent which set out a version of events.
3. I have considered the reliability of the complainant's evidence and the statements made by the Defendant in some detail below.
4. I note that three police officers also gave evidence but no issues were raised as to the reliability of their evidence, which was uncontentious.

1. The complainant was an open and honest witness, however the Defendant submits that her evidence is nevertheless unreliable, given how unwell she became during the relevant period. As noted at the beginning of these reasons, the complainant has schizophrenia and she asked the Defendant for assistance because she was weening herself off her medication and she unwell.
2. As the Defendant submits:

(a) the complainant asked the defendant to live with her in May 2023, at a time when her mental health was already starting to decline, and he moved in, in late May 2023;

(b) the complainant's mental health was declining, at least in part, due to her eschewal of her ordinary medication (this was done in joint consultation with, and under the auspices of, her doctor, and continued with the Defendant's assistance when he moved in with her);

(c) the complainant described the effect that being unwell has had on her in the past, including:

(a) losing touch with reality and having delusions;

(b) spending money carelessly, including making reckless donations; and

(c) changing her name when she sought out a married man; and

(d) on this occasion, the complainant said that, at some point, she could not reason properly and she confided in, and trusted the Defendant, which she would not normally do, whilst adopting the opposite attitude to her daughter (Ms Valent) and brother (Mr Falzarano), whom she normally trusted.

1. The Defendant described a 'profound disparity between the complainant's world view when she suffers from symptoms of schizophrenia, and when she is in remission, that warrants the Court's scepticism about the reliability of her evidence'. The Defendant also submitted that the complainant acted in a way that was utterly inconsistent with her normal behaviour and values when she suffered from the onset of her protracted schizophrenic episodes.
2. However, there is little evidence as to the impact of the complainant's condition on her during the relevant period, until close to her hospitalisation on 12 July 2023. By that time, the complainant was floridly psychotic but that was not the state she was in when the Defendant moved in with her at the end of May 2023.
3. It also does not appear that the complainant's mental health condition was substantially impacting her by the time she attended the CBA on 29 June 2023 to execute the authority which allowed the Defendant to access her account. I have no doubt that the complainant's mental health had declined, and the complainant herself said that she was confused. However, as the Defendant noted, no issues of competence were raised by the bank, which indicates that there were not any obvious issues (although it should be noted that there are no records of any checks being made) and the complainant did not identify what the nature of her confusion was.
4. However, the decline in the complainant's mental health was clearly having an impact by 8 July 2023. During a phone call with the complainant and the Defendant on that date, Mr Valent identified that the complainant was agitated and confused and saying things that did not make sense, including being paranoid that she was being followed and that the paparazzi were trying to take photos of her. He discussed with the Defendant that the complainant was clearly unwell. This is consistent with the Defendant's advice to the hospital on the complainant's admission, as recorded in the hospital notes, that she had been delusionary for the previous few days, including speaking about paparazzi chasing her, and everybody being after her.
5. Another example of the complainant's delusion is that, on one occasion, she told the Defendant that their son and daughter-in-law (from Seattle) were in the backyard, when they were not, but it is not clear when this incident occurred. Given the Defendant's advice to the hospital as to the timing of the complainant's delusions, I suspect that this incident also occurred in the days leading up to the complainant's admission.
6. Hospital notes record that, by 18 August 2023, the complainant's mental state had improved and she appeared to be approaching her baseline mental state. At that time, she was transferred from the Adult Mental Health Unit to the Adult Mental Health Rehabilitation Unit for ongoing monitoring and care until her mental state had fully stabilised.
7. I accept the Defendant's submission that the complainant's mental health was declining whilst he was living with her, but the evidence points to there being an obvious deterioration in her mental health in the days leading up to her admission on 12 July 2023, rather than there being a consistent decline over the period that the Defendant lived with her. This reflects the Defendant's advice to the hospital, following the complainant's admission, that the complainant had been 'reasonably well' for the previous two months, until 'a few days ago' and with the advice that Ms Valent provided to the hospital that the complainant's symptoms were quite stable for several months while the complainant was off her medication.
8. Having regard to all of the foregoing, I am not satisfied that the complainant had lost touch with reality prior to 8 July 2023. I do not accept the Defendant's submission that the complainant's evidence is unreliable or that I should, in a general sense, approach the complainant's evidence sceptically.
9. The complainant said, in relation to the relevant period, that she was able to recall some things but not others. Being able to recall some matters, and not others, is, as the Prosecution submits, not unique to someone with a mental health condition.
10. Further, the evidence of the complainant and Mr Falzarano is that, even for periods when the complainant is unwell, she has good recall of events once she becomes well again. The complainant said that this includes having good insight into how she was thinking at the time.
11. The complainant's evidence reflects both that she was able to recall events relevant to this matter and that she had good recall of those events. I note that, in the complainant's Family Violence Evidence-in-Chief (FVEIC) interview with police, which was undertaken while the complainant was still in hospital, she gave evidence that:

(a) she had asked the Defendant to help her in late May 2023, when she was mentally unwell and he came to help her;

(b) the Defendant took the complainant to the bank to sign a form allowing him to operate her account for her;

(c) it was a Commonwealth Bank account that the Defendant was authorised to access; and

(d) she was admitted to hospital on 12 July 2023.

1. In answering questions at the hearing, the complainant gave evidence that:

(a) she had a car savings account containing approximately $15,000;

(b) while the Defendant was living with the complainant, he opened an account with Beyond Bank to save for a car;

(c) she also thought that the Defendant had a car savings account with the CBA;

(d) she attended the CBA to sign a form giving the Defendant access to one of her accounts and she was advised by a bank officer that the authority gave the Defendant the ability to operate her account.

1. All of this evidence is accurate. Except for the timing of the Defendant's re-entry into the complainant's life, in relation to which there is no dispute, each of the other pieces of evidence is supported by objective evidence (in the form of bank and hospital records).
2. The complainant also remembered smaller details, telling police that, while she paid for most things, the Defendant paid for swimming expenses. That the Defendant paid for swimming expenses appears to be reflected in the Defendant's bank statement, which records an expense on the day he moved in with the complainant that appears to have been for swimming ($82 at the ASC swim school) and which records that the Defendant also twice spent $20 at Club Lime ANU while he was living with the complainant (from 28 May to 12 July 2023).
3. These payments can be contrasted with payments of $10 the Defendant made to Club Lime ANU either side of the period that the Defendant was living with the complainant. The payments to ANU Club Lime were at irregular intervals, which is consistent with the complainant's evidence that the Defendant paid to go swimming rather than those being payments consistent with ongoing gym membership fees. Given that the cost doubled when the Defendant was living with the complainant, this is consistent with the Defendant paying for both of them to go swimming when the Defendant was living with the complainant (as the complainant said occurred occasionally), but only paying for himself either side of that period.
4. To the extent that the complainant also suggested that she paid for everything else, that may not be accurate, as there are expenses recorded on the Defendant's bank account statement for, for example, food outlet stores, grocery stores and homewares and home improvement stores during the time that the Defendant was living with the complainant. However, it is not clear that the complainant was trying to tell police that she paid for everything.
5. She told police that the Defendant did not pay her anything. That appears to be true, as there is no evidence which indicates that he did pay the complainant anything.
6. She also told police that the Defendant did not contribute to house costs. To the extent that the complainant had in mind direct house costs like energy and water, that is also true, as those expenses were automatically deducted from her account.
7. Further, the amounts that the Defendant spent while he was living with the complainant were not significant ($186.27 at grocery stores, $73.03 at a chemist and vitamin stores, $89.85 at homewares and home improvement stores and $101.30 at food outlets). Accordingly, the complainant's recollection that she was paying for food and coffees may well be true, even if the Defendant also incurred some expenses of that kind.
8. Accordingly, while I need to assess the complainant's evidence carefully, it is clear that her evidence is not inherently unreliable. Indeed, on matters that can be tested against objective evidence, I find that the complainant's evidence was reliable.

1. On the other hand, the Defendant was evasive in his interview with police, and the statements he made to police and to Ms Valent (by email), contained inconsistencies and errors. Some of the statements were misleading and others were clearly untrue and known by the Defendant to be untrue. I do not accept anything that the Defendant said as being truthful unless corroborated by other evidence.
2. As noted earlier in these reasons, the two versions of events that the Defendant put forward to police and Ms Valent, in relation to financial matters concerning him and the complainant during the relevant period, were that he and the complainant:

(a) shared whatever money was left over once bills were paid and, to that end, they shared part of an account, from which the Defendant withdrew money for them to do things together, withdrawing a little bit at a time (version to police); and

(b) agreed to save for a car together and, to that end, the complainant transferred $1,000 to the Defendant each payday, with the goal of the Defendant saving $10,000 towards the car (version to Ms Valent).

1. The former was never put to the complainant in cross-examination and does not appear to be relied on by the Defendant as having been an arrangement that he and the complainant had adopted. It is not consistent with the objective evidence in any case, as I will discuss.
2. The latter version of events is inconsistent with the evidence. It is possible that the complainant agreed to buy a car with the Defendant, as the complainant indicated was the case. However, insofar as the Defendant explained this version of events in his email to Ms Valent, it is inconsistent with:

(a) the complainant's evidence that she did not make any transfers to the Defendant's account;

(b) the Defendant's concession that he made all of the transfers once the complainant was hospitalised; and

(c) the objective evidence. The transfers on the bank statement do not reflect the sum he told Ms Valent that the complainant had transferred to him, nor were the transfers made in regular intervals like payday payments are.

1. For these reasons, which are elaborated on below, I do not believe the versions of events given by the Defendant. I do not even think that they, or either of them, might be true.

1. The Defendant gave a statement to police by way of recorded interview conducted on 6 August 2023.
2. At Answer 114 the following exchange occurred:

Q113: Right. Now, can you tell me about the current financial arrangements that you and your ex-wife have?

A114: Well, we don't have any financial arrangements ... Although, we - we - you could call it a financial arrangement. Since we've been living together ... she trusted me and she said, 'Look, you can manage the finances.' And I said to her, 'Okay. Well, if I manage your finances, I'm sure we'll be both better off.' Her bills are all being paid.

1. I make two observations about what the Defendant said in this exchange.
2. The first is that the proposition that the complainant had agreed to the Defendant looking after her finances is consistent with her evidence, including her evidence in relation to the reason why she authorised him to access her account (I will return to that issue later). The second is that, despite the apparent truth of that proposition, the Defendant's statement is also misleading.
3. I consider that the Defendant's answer contains a deliberate indication that he was paying the bills and, in that way, looking after her financial interests. However, the following exchange then occurred:

A117-118: Well, the bills come out automatically ... she set up that on her phone that all the bills are paid.

1. This answer makes clear that the Defendant was not actually looking after her financial interests by paying bills. She had arranged for automatic deductions from her account. That she had done so is consistent with automatic deductions for ActewAGL and Icon Water that were taken by direct debit from her Beyond Bank savings account during the relevant period.
2. The Defendant then said, at A119:

1. This was not true. As I will discuss later in these reasons, where I undertake a more detailed analysis of the relevant bank statements, the Defendant shared little, if any, of the money that he received during the relevant period from his pension, and instead transferred that money (which, without access to the complainant's money, he ordinarily withdrew for himself in cash) to the CBA car savings account he created when he was living with the complainant. Of the complainant's money, the bulk of that money went to the Defendant's car savings account, either directly or indirectly.
2. The Defendant made similar statements at Answers 121 to 130, as follows:

A121: Well, she has a special kind of pension which comes from her superannuation

Q128: Can you tell me more about the setup with how the finances work while you've been living together?

A128: Right. Well, whatever money we have leftover, right, like I said to you, we shared it

Q130: Is that in a shared bank account? How does it work? What does it look like?

A130: Ah, we had a shared part of that account. So most of it stays with her and some of it was shared. So I just withdrew money, I would say, and we went out and did things together, so.

1. This information is clearly not accurate. As I have discussed already, while there was an agreement that the Defendant could access the complainant's account, the evidence is inconsistent with his assertion that most of the money stayed with the complainant and with his assertion that he just withdrew money so that they could do things together. In relation to the latter assertion, as I will discuss shortly, he withdrew money on the day he obtained access to the account, and not at any other time.
2. At Answer 131, the Defendant made the following statement:

Q131: And where has that money come out of - which account - when you do things together?

A131: Um, I don't even know, to tell you the truth, because I think I paid for most of it and it's from my account

1. I note that this is contradictory to the statement that he had just made to police, that they shared a part of the complainant's account.
2. The Defendant also spoke of withdrawing money from the complainant's account. He said:

A136 - 137: ... She has one account and I have one account, but she also asked the bank ... that I can operate.

A138: So, like, I could go and withdraw money from that account

Q139: When was the last time you withdrew money from her account?

1. I note that this information is correct, but it is contradictory to the explanation he initially provided to police, which is that he was managing their finances by withdrawing money from a part of the complainant's account so that they could do things together, seemingly throughout the relevant period.
2. Similarly, the Defendant said at Answers 144 to 149:

A144-145: Well, she gave me permission to withdraw money if I - if I needed it ... but I never withdrew it for my own needs

Q147: Do you know how much money it was at the time roughly?

A 148-149: We took - took about - withdrawing a little bit at a time ... As much as we needed for a morning tea

1. This answer is inconsistent with the complainant's bank records. There were only two withdrawals during the relevant period, both on the day he obtained authority to access the complainant's account (29 June 2023), of $400 each.
2. The Defendant was asked to confirm how he withdrew money. He said:

Q151: so when you say 'withdraw money', are you doing it electronically and then into an account, or are you physically going to an ATM, using the card and withdrawing case?

1. That is, the Defendant confirmed that the answers he had given to that point concerned the physical withdrawal of funds from an ATM. In the following exchange he distinguished the withdrawal of funds from an ATM from a transaction involving a transfer to his account. He said:

A203 - 205 [in relation to the Defendant transferring $400 in August 2023, after the FVO had been made]: I did actually ask her. Yeah. I ask her, 'Look, I don't have any money' ... 'Is it alright with you if I withdraw $400?' And she said, 'Yes. That's quite alright'

Q206: Okay. And what happened in relation to the $400?

Q207: Once again, so how did that withdrawal take place? So you access her account. Withdrew the money from that account. Where did the money go? ..

Q209: Okay. So I just want to clarify because, prior to this, you said the last time you withdrew money was about six weeks ago when you were with her

A209: Yes. That's actually withdrawing money that we had in hand. This was a transaction

1. The Defendant was then asked whether any transactions had occurred (as opposed to withdrawals), or any other time that the complainant's bank account had been accessed. He said:

A210: I think I did ask her a couple of times before

1. This answer is clearly misleading and contradictory. His statements to that point were that he had only ever withdrawn money as cash, until 5 August 2023. In this answer, the Defendant said that, in addition to the transaction on 5 August 2023, he asked to transfer funds a couple of times. However, at the hearing he conceded that he accessed her account several times whilst she was in hospital and, as I have found, he also made numerous other transfers to his account between 27 June and 12 July 2023.
2. Finally, the Defendant confirmed his position that the amounts he and the complainant had spent were small. He said:

Q228: So ... over the last six weeks, have there been any larger purchases that you have jointly made? Like, anything more than, say, $1,000?

Q229: No? So it's all usually what we call small change. It's dealing in the hundreds of dollars

1. Again, this is a misleading statement in the context of the questions that had been asked. It is true that no large joint purchases had been made, but the clear impression he gave was that he had only accessed the complainant's money to withdraw cash to pay for small items like morning teas when, in fact, he had made large transfers of funds to his account.
2. The Defendant submits that the statements he made in his interview with police are consistent with the complainant's evidence and with his innocence. For the reasons I have already articulated, I disagree.
3. The truth, as I have noted later in these reasons when analysing the Defendant's and the complainant's bank statements, is that:

(a) the two withdrawals he made on 29 June 2023, when he obtained access to the complainant's account, totalled $800, which is not a small sum;

(b) otherwise, on several occasions most (and on some occasions all) of the sums that were deposited in the complainant's account were transferred to one of the Defendant's two CBA accounts on, or a short time after, the day the amounts were credited to the complainant's account;

(c) on several occasions, substantial sums were transferred to the Defendant, including $3,000 on 10 July 2023 (while the Defendant was still living with the Defendant but after which her mental health had obviously deteriorated) and $3,980 on 13 July 2023 (the day after the complainant was admitted to hospital);

(d) some transfers were made directly to the Beyond Bank car savings account and the CBA car savings account and the majority of sums that were transferred to the Defendant's other CBA account were subsequently transferred to his CBA car savings account;

(e) in large part the Defendant transferred his pension payments to his car savings account (that is, he did not share his money); and

(f) the Defendant made nine transfers (on six separate days) from the complainant's account to his after the complainant was admitted into hospital, totalling $5,750 (quite clearly not withdrawing a little bit at a time for him and the complainant to have morning tea and without any indication that the Defendant needed the money for anything in particular).

1. The Defendant wrote an email to Ms Valent on 16 November 2024 in which he made certain statements which sought to explain why sums of money had been transferred from the complainant's account to his. He said, relevantly:

First of all I want to apologise to you for now I see that you are right and I was wrong in understanding the situation and trusting your mother and not taking your advice. I hope that you can forgive me ... Now going back to your mother I would like to explain that trusting her I was wrong too. She is the one that came up with all the ideas that she talked me into, one of them was that we will save for our future car. This she said we will do in an account that was apart from her name, because she said that she did not trust you as you had access to her account. I suggested to open a new account in her name as well as mine with special conditions attached. This of course never eventuated as she was hospitalised and everything came to an end. Before this she was transferring money into my account, I do not know why, and she said we will open our joint account later. Perhaps she trusted me ... Now she is accusing me for stealing her money while she is disposing of my property. She talked me into selling my car so I do not even have that. Even my bike is there, so I bought another. At her place I had my bed, desk, books, documents, camping equipment, tools, the list goes on ... At my place I had almost nothing, so when the Police told me that I had to leave her place I came back to nothing. Now going back to the money part she wanted me to have access to her account in a limited way. I found that 1,000 was transferred to my phone every payday. She said that she wanted me to put this money towards our car till 10,000- was going to be reached. I did as she had asked me to. Then the transfers were stopped, but I was going to stop it anyway .. I have to I will give the money back to her, but I do not really want to as I need to buy another car and all the property that I lost because of her ... I hope that you will now see that all I wanted to do was to help her. But perhaps this was a mistake too ...

1. As I will discuss, the complainant and the Defendant did discuss buying a car together. The Defendant did also move his possessions into the complainant's house when he was staying with her. Accordingly, there is a kernel of truth to the contents of the email.
2. However, given the inconstancies, untruths and misleading statements to police, his email to Ms Valent must be approached with caution, particularly as he had been charged with the present offences by the time he wrote the email (and, indeed, a hearing date had been set). Similarly, parts of the Defendant's email are untrue and contradictory.
3. In particular, the Defendant states that, before her hospitalisation, the complainant transferred money into his account, but he did not know why. This is at odds with his earlier statement that they had agreed that they would save for a joint car and that they would do so in an account apart from the complainant's name because she did not trust Ms Valent.
4. Later in the email, the Defendant states that he discovered that the complainant had transferred $1,000 to him every payday and that he did as the complainant asked him to do. However, this is inconsistent with the bank records, which show only one payment of $1,000 being transferred to the Defendant. His reference to having done what the complainant asked him to do is unexplained.
5. Towards the end of the email, the Defendant stated that the transfers were stopped, but that he was going to stop them anyway. This was not true.
6. The strong impression given by this statement was that payments were made by the complainant, later discovered by the Defendant, which then stopped, but which the Defendant was going to put an end to anyway, presumably because (as he claimed) he had just discovered them. There are several issues with the statement:

(a) Firstly, why would he put an end to the payments, when he said that they had agreed to save for a car together and, on that version, the complainant was giving effect to that agreement?

(b) Secondly, putting to one side the fact that $1,000 was not being routinely transferred to his account as he said had occurred each payday, it is clear that the transfers that were made were not being made without the Defendant's knowledge - undermining the impression that he had just discovered the transfers into his account at some point. The first transfer was made to his Beyond Bank car savings account, the second transfer to his general CBA account and the seventh to his CBA car savings account. Assuming that the transfers were made by the complainant, and not by the Defendant himself, how would the complainant know about each of these accounts without the Defendant knowing that she wanted to transfer funds into them and providing her with the account details? Further, on the same day that the third of the transfers was made to his main CBA account (2 July 2023), the Defendant transferred the same amount to his CBA car savings account. As I will discuss in greater detail later in these reasons, the pattern of transferring money out of the general CBA account, into which he had received funds from the complainant's account, into the Defendant's CBA car savings account, continued throughout the relevant period.

(c) Thirdly, the transfers were not stopped. Nor, as he says elsewhere in the email, did everything just come to an end when the complainant was hospitalised. Not only did he continue to live in the complainant's house, but he made several transfers from her account to his, totalling over $5,000, in the two weeks following her hospitalisation and a further $400 a week or so later, the day before he was interviewed by police for breaching an FVO that Ms Valent had obtained against him.

(d) Fourthly, while in contrast to his interview with police 15 months earlier, the Defendant discloses in this email that there were several transfers of funds from the complainant's account to his, it is noteworthy that even in this email, after he had been charged with 19 counts of theft, and knowing (even on his case) that he had made the transfers to his account that were the subject of nine of those transfers, the Defendant still did not admit to having made any of the transfers.

1. Like the Defendant's statements to police, the Defendant's email to Ms Valent thus contained inconsistencies, untruths and misleading statements. Taken together, the statements he made to police and in his email to Ms Valent reflect poorly on his credibility and I do not accept anything that the Defendant said as being truthful unless corroborated by other evidence.

What financial arrangement did the Defendant have with the complainant, if any?

What was the nature of the Defendant's authority to operate the complainant's bank account?

1. It is not in dispute that the complainant and the Defendant attended the CBA on 29 June 2023. On that occasion, she signed an authority granting the Defendant authority to access her account. A bank officer explained to her that that the form she was signing authorised the Defendant to operate her account.
2. While the complainant said that she would not have signed the form if she was well, and that she was confused to some extent at the time, it is clear that she considered her position before agreeing to do so. This is clear from her evidence that she thought the Defendant would consult with her about the operation of the account and her expectation that he would not use the account to the extent that he did. That is, she was comfortable with the Defendant accessing the account, subject to conditions.
3. Having said that, the authority was given in unusual circumstances. It appears from the complainant's evidence that the complainant was not involved in the discussions that the Defendant had with the bank about the reason for the authority to be given and was asked to sign the form as a fait accompli.
4. The complainant gave the following evidence:

And so you've talked about remembering giving Theo access to your account. Do you remember when you signed that document - or not when, but do you remember what was happening when you signed that document?‑‑‑I just - he seemed to be very friendly to me and trying - making out that he was my ally and he was trying to help me, and I just - I just wanted to trust him, to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wanted to help me, and I was hoping that he - in giving this authority, that he would let me know any time he wanted to draw money out for whatever reason, but I didn't give it to him with the intention that he drew out large sums of money of $1,000, or $2,000 or $3,000.

Yes?‑‑‑They were way more than what I had in mind. Even though I gave him this authority, I didn't expect that he would use it to the extent that he did. I thought he would still - I thought he would still consult me.

So do you remember whether you talked with Theo before you signed this document at all about ‑ ‑ ‑?‑‑‑No.

Okay?‑‑‑No, what happened - what I remember was we went to the bank together - the Commonwealth Bank in Tuggeranong - and he asked me to sit down - because they had seats to wait in the bank. He asked me to sit down and he went and spoke to the bank officer. This is how I remember it, and I'm hoping I remember it correctly ‑ ‑ ‑

Yes?--- - - - but this is how I remember it. He asked me to sit down while he talked to a bank officer, and after he was talking to the bank officer for a while, the bank officer approached me and asked me to sign this document, and she explained to me that it's a document giving him authority to operate my account, and I thought, 'Okay, I'll sign it, because she asked me to sign it,' but I think if I wasn't - if I was well, I wouldn't have signed this document.

And ‑ ‑ ‑?‑‑‑Because I wouldn't have trusted - I wouldn't have trusted him with this if I was well, but I was - I was being very trusting of him when I signed it.

Yes. And ‑ ‑ ‑?‑‑‑So I signed it because I thought it was an appropriate thing to do if I wanted his help, but I didn't expect that he would pull out so much money out of my account.

1. While the complainant said that she hoped that she was recalling the incident correctly, she did have a recollection of attending the Tuggeranong branch of the CBA and the layout of that branch. That is, she had a specific recollection of an occasion that obviously did occur. She recalled, as is indicated on the authority form, that she was advised by the bank officer that the authority gave the Defendant the ability to operate her account.
2. I accept the complainant's evidence that the Defendant took control at the bank and arranged for the relevant paperwork to be prepared without the complainant's involvement, but that a bank officer explained to her that the authority would allow the Defendant to operate her account. She would not have signed the authority if she had been well (taking her medication) but, at the time, she trusted him and thought it was an appropriate thing to do if she wanted his help. I accept her evidence that the Defendant told her that he wanted to help her look after her money.
3. The complainant hoped that the Defendant would let her know any time he wanted to withdraw money out, but it is not clear that she communicated that expectation. Nevertheless, the Defendant must have appreciated that he had an obligation to act in her interests or in accordance with any arrangement that they had come to. On the version of events that the Defendant gave to police, he said that the complainant gave him permission to withdraw money from the account if he needed it. I accept that might be true.
4. There is no evidence which suggests that the complainant gave the Defendant access to her account for him to use her money for whatever purpose and in whatever amount he pleased. Indeed, there is no evidence that the complainant gave the Defendant access to her account for any purpose other than to assist her with her finances. Subject to the possibility that the complainant gave the Defendant permission to withdraw money from the account if he needed it, the authority that the complainant gave to the Defendant was not directed at benefitting the Defendant in any way.

There was no other financial arrangement between the Defendant and the complainant

1. As I have found above, I accept that it might be true that the complainant told the Defendant that he could withdraw money from her account if he needed it. I do not accept that the Defendant and the complainant had any other financial arrangement.

No arrangement for the complainant to give the Defendant money

1. The complainant's evidence does not support a finding that she had any particular discussion with the Defendant about the management of finances, certainly not any discussion about specific dollar amounts (or even a range of amounts), that she would or might give him or was prepared for the Defendant to take. The Defendant describes it as an ad hoc arrangement, predicated not on any conversation, but an assumption of mutual understanding.
2. He is right in saying that there is no evidence of any conversation, but I do not agree that there was an assumption of mutual understanding. There was no arrangement at all.
3. While in her evidence the complainant agreed with the proposition that there was a mutual understanding, she also said in answer to that proposition, 'I just trusted him'. She did not recall any discussion in which she gave the Defendant permission to withdraw particular sums of money and there is no evidence of the complainant doing or saying anything from which a mutual understanding of that kind could have arisen.
4. The complainant notes in her evidence that the Defendant started taking her to the bank quite frequently at one stage, and then really frequently, seemingly in the period prior to 29 June 2023 when the Defendant arranged for the complainant to give him access to her account.
5. Although the complainant stated that the Defendant attended to a range of administrative matters at the bank, I consider that it is likely that, at least on some occasions when they attended the bank, they withdrew money. The administrative activities the complainant described do not explain, on their own, why they would have visited the bank with such frequency. It might also explain the complainant's evidence that she thought that the Defendant was always asking her before taking out cash and the statement in her evidence that, just because she gave the Defendant $100 one day, the Defendant should not have assumed that she would give him $100 in the next couple of days, or $200 the day after.
6. The complainant's evidence is that she wanted to help the Defendant financially, to a small extent, because she believed it was reasonable to help him with some money. She said she was prepared to give the Defendant money for helping her, in small amounts of $100 or $200.
7. However, that was just what she considered reasonable and there is no evidence of her discussing such payments with the Defendant. The complainant was clear in her evidence that she did not think that she would have been happy with the Defendant taking large sums of money - of $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 - as was transferred to his account. There is no evidence that she agreed to such sums being transferred to the Defendant's account.
8. Similarly, she gave evidence that she would have agreed to possibly giving the Defendant $2,000 overall, but there is no evidence that she discussed any arrangement in that respect with the Defendant. She agreed that it was just based on a general idea at the time she gave her evidence of what she would have approved at the time.
9. That is, the complainant's evidence is simply that, now, looking back, she thought she would have been happy to give him particular amounts to thank him for his assistance, up to a particular cap. She makes reference on several occasions to the fact that the dollar figures she had mentioned in her evidence were figures that, with hindsight, she thinks she would have thought reasonable at the time. Her evidence is not that she in fact formed the intention to give the Defendant those amounts, nor that she told the Defendant that she would.
10. It is to be kept in mind that the amounts withdrawn from the complainant's account and transferred from her account to the Defendant's accounts do not reflect the sums she identified in her evidence, with only three out of the 19 impugned transactions being for the sums she identified and the total of the all the transactions well exceeding the cap she identified. That is, the objective evidence does not support there having been a mutual understanding that the complainant would give the Defendant $100 or $200 every few days.
11. Consistently with that view of the evidence, there is nothing in the statement that the Defendant gave to police, or the email he sent to Ms Valent, that suggested that he and the complainant had discussed the complainant giving him any particular sums of money.
12. I accept that the complainant's evidence is reliable. Some of the complainant's answers in relation to questions that were asked of her were attendant with some uncertainty, as she sought to recall what had happened and to hypothesise about what she would have thought about particular matters at the time, but the overall tenor of her evidence, which I have described above, is clear. Her evidence, that she and the Defendant never discussed the payment of money to him, is not challenged.
13. I do not accept that the complainant and the Defendant had an agreement or understanding pursuant to which the complainant agreed that she would give the Defendant any money. As noted above, she may have given the Defendant permission to withdraw money if he needed it and she may have gifted the Defendant money (in the form of cash) from time to time prior to 29 June 2023, however I do not find that there was any agreement for the complainant to give the Defendant $100 or $200, or any other amount, on an ongoing basis.
14. For the same reasons, I do not accept that the Defendant believed (or, even, that he might have believed) that the complainant would give him $100 or $200 (or any other particular sum) on an ongoing basis, or that she had authorised him to take such sums from her account.
15. Accordingly, the Prosecution's Alternative Submission falls away.
16. To the extent that the Defendant's case relied on there having been an agreement that the complainant would give, or the Defendant could take, money on a regular basis, I also reject that submission.

No agreement that the Defendant could use the complainant's account to transfer money to his accounts

1. Similarly, there is no evidence that the complainant ever agreed to the Defendant transferring money from her account to his. Further, the complainant's evidence, which I accept, is that she did not realise that the Defendant was transferring money to his own account.
2. The Defendant's statement to police, that the complainant had given him permission to withdraw money from her account if he needed it is, in circumstances where he explained that, by withdraw, he meant withdraw cash from an ATM, consistent with the complainant's evidence that she had given him permission to withdraw funds from her account, not make transfers from it.
3. I find that there was no agreement that the Defendant could use the complainant's account to transfer money to his accounts.

A plan to buy a new car but no agreement for the complainant to give the Defendant money towards the purchase of a new car

1. As noted in my discussion of the credibility of the Defendant's statements to police and Ms Valent, in his email to Ms Valent the Defendant asserted that the complainant talked him into saving for a car together and suggested to the Defendant that this be done in an account that was not in her name because she was worried that Ms Valent had access to her account.
2. The Defendant asserted that he suggested that they open a joint account but that, while that never eventuated, the complainant transferred money to the Defendant's account prior to her hospitalisation. Confusingly, the Defendant said that he did not know why that money was transferred but later in the email said that the complainant transferred $1,000 every payday and told the Defendant that she wanted him to put the money towards their car, until $10,000 was reached.
3. For the reasons which I have articulated earlier in these reasons, the Defendant's email to the complainant contained numerous untruths. Those untruths undermine the credibility of the other claims made in the email and the Defendant's credibility more generally. As I found in considering the Defendant's credibility, I do not accept anything that the Defendant said as being truthful unless corroborated by other evidence.
4. I do not accept that the claims made in the Defendant's email are truthful.
5. I note the complainant's clear refutation of the proposition that was put to her at the hearing that she had a plan to transfer up to $10,000 to the Defendant to buy a car together. She said that, while the Defendant might have had that plan, she never had it. She agreed that she had looked at cars with the Defendant but said that she wanted him to save for his car for himself. Given my general acceptance of the credibility of the complainant's evidence, the clarity of her evidence and her recollection of her position at the time, I accept the complainant's evidence.
6. In answering questions about the use to which the cash that was taken out on 29 June 2023 was put, the complainant suggested that the Defendant might have put some of it into his bank account for the car. She noted that the Defendant had opened an account with Beyond Bank to start saving for a car which, as I noted earlier in these reasons is reflected in the Defendant's bank account statements.
7. The complainant said that the Defendant noticed that she had a car account and wanted a car account like hers. Her recollection that she had a car savings account is reflected in her bank statements. Her evidence as to the Defendant's actions is consistent with the chronology of events, namely that the complainant had a car savings account when the Defendant moved in with her and he opened a car savings account in his own name about a week after he moved in. I accept the complainant's evidence that the Defendant copied the complainant's approach to saving for a car.
8. The complainant also suggested that the Defendant might have put the money into a car account that the complainant thought that he held with the CBA. As also noted earlier in these reasons, her understanding that the Defendant had a CBA car savings account is also consistent with the Defendant's bank records.
9. There is no suggestion in the evidence that the Defendant opened a car savings account in order to fund the joint purchase of car, nor that the complainant had any role in setting up his accounts. I find that the Defendant was simply copying the complainant as the Defendant wanted to save for a new car as well.
10. I accept that the complainant had a good recall of the discussions that she and the Defendant had about him opening his car savings accounts in order that the Defendant might save for a car like the complainant was.
11. The complainant also recalled going to car dealerships with the Defendant. She recalled going to a BMW dealership and the Defendant encouraging her to go along with his plan to buy a BMW together. She said she went along with the plan at the time because she was high and elevated but, even at that time, she wondered how the Defendant was going to achieve it, or how they could achieve it, because the car the Defendant was looking at cost more than $120,000.
12. The complainant said that she did not raise her concerns about the affordability of the plan with the Defendant, but did recall having a discussion about saving for a car. She was clear that she did not agree to any plan to match the money that the Defendant had in his account. She explained that she had $15,000 in her car savings account (which is reflected in her bank statements) and that the Defendant was going to try to match what she had, as the Defendant acknowledged that he had a lot less than what she did.
13. Given the complainant's clear recollection of the conversations she had with the Defendant, I accept the complainant's evidence that she did tell the Defendant that she would go along with his plan to buy a BMW together but that there was no plan as to how they would achieve that goal, including no agreement for the complainant to give the Defendant money towards the purchase of a car. Rather, the only thing that was discussed was that the Defendant would try to save as much as the complainant had saved in her car savings account, being around $15,000.

No agreement for the Defendant to hold the complainant's money on trust

1. I also do not accept that the complainant and the Defendant had an agreement that the Defendant would hold her money for her in his account in order to put the money out of Ms Valent's reach. The Defendant's email suggests that the complainant wanted to save for a car in this way but, as I have found, the email from the Defendant to Ms Valent lacks credibility. It is also not a version of events that the Defendant articulated to police when asked about the financial arrangements that he and the complainant had.
2. Insofar as the Defendant relies on a more general desire on the complainant's part to avoid Ms Valent interfering in her financial affairs, I note that this is an issue that appears to have been more significant to the Defendant than it was to the complainant.
3. In cross-examination, the complainant accepted that she and Ms Valent had had a falling out over the complainant's decision to ween herself off her medication from around September 2022. She said that she and Ms Valent had not had a lot of contact after that because Ms Valent was upset with the complainant.
4. She was asked about the power of attorney that she had made in 2020, which gave Ms Valent (and Mr Valent) the power to act on the complainant's behalf in relation to a range of matters, including financial matters. It was put to the complainant that she told the Defendant that she wanted to revoke the power of attorney, however the complainant said that she did not remember saying that. She remembered the Defendant saying that she should get rid of the power of attorney but she did not want to do that.
5. The complainant was clear in her refutation of the proposition that the Defendant told her that she should not revoke the power of attorney because it was too complicated. She repeated that it was the Defendant who wanted her to revoke the power of attorney and she did not want to because it took a lot of effort and cost to set it up. She was clear that it was the Defendant encouraging her to revoke it.
6. Again, given my general acceptance of the reliability of the complainant's evidence, and the clarity of her recollection in relation to this issue, I accept that the complainant's evidence about the power of attorney is accurate.
7. The complainant accepted in cross-examination that, because of the falling out she had had with Ms Valent, she was a bit distrusting of her with respect to the power of attorney and was concerned that Ms Valent might access her bank accounts. However, she also gave evidence that Ms Valent did not have access to her money at the time that the complainant was distrusting of her, because Ms Valent only had access when the complainant was not mentally well.
8. It was the complainant's understanding that Ms Valent could only exercise the power of attorney if the complainant became unwell, was hospitalised and was considered by a doctor to be unable to look after herself. In a general sense, that understanding is consistent with the terms of the power of attorney, which was only exercisable when the complainant was a person 'with impaired decision making capacity'. The complainant said that she did not see the need to revoke the power of attorney because she thought that she was well.
9. I accept that that is how the complainant viewed the situation prior to her hospitalisation. Accordingly, I do not accept that the complainant was motivated to transfer her money to the Defendant to put it beyond Ms Valent's reach or that she otherwise had any agreement with the Defendant to hold the money on trust for her to achieve that objective.
10. I also find that the complainant did not ask the Defendant to hold the money for her for any other purpose. She was asked in cross-examination whether she transferred the money to the Defendant so that he could look after it for her while she was unwell, however she emphatically denied that that was possible. She said that she definitely did not do that. Given the clarity of her evidence, I accept that it is reliable.

1. Charges 8212/24 and 8213/24 concern the withdrawal of two amounts of $400 from the complainant's account on 29 June 2023, the day that complainant and the Defendant went to the CBA to put the authority in place for the Defendant to be able to access the complainant's account.
2. The complainant said that that the Defendant withdrew and kept the money. She recalled that the Defendant withdrew the money through the teller although she could not remember if he asked her to sign the withdrawal form or not. I accept her evidence.
3. What happened to the money is unclear. The complainant said in evidence that she was not sure what the Defendant did with the money. She said that they might have spent some of it on groceries or the Defendant might have put some of it into his Beyond Bank or CBA car savings accounts.
4. Accordingly, while it appears that the Defendant did not give any of the money to the complainant (which is consistent with the Defendant having taken control of their finances), the use to which the Defendant put the money is unclear. Ultimately, the complainant said that she did not know what the Defendant did with the money and I note that there are no entries in the Defendant's bank statements indicating that the money was deposited into any of the Defendant's accounts.
5. The lack of clarity as to how the money was used, including whether it was used for what might be described as joint household expenses such as groceries, makes it difficult to ascertain what the Defendant's intention was with respect to the use of the money at the time that he withdrew it. Ultimately, there is insufficient evidence to satisfy me that the Defendant dishonestly appropriated the money with the intention of permanently depriving the complainant of the money. Accordingly, these charges must fail.

1. I am satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Defendant made all of the impugned transfers. He admits making the transfers once the complainant was hospitalised and, in my view, the only rational explanation in the circumstances is that the Defendant also made the transfers prior to her hospitalisation as well.
2. Firstly, the Defendant took a keen interest in the complainant's finances soon after moving in with her and convinced her to give him access to her account. As the complainant told police in her FVEIC, evidence which I accept given the complainant's clear recollection of the events, that included:

(a) trying to find out about the complainant's finances once he moved in with her, including wanting to see how she effected transfers electronically. She explained that the Defendant was intrigued to learn how the complainant used internet banking and asked her to show him how she used it. She told police that she showed the Defendant each step in the process of transferring money from one account to another so that the Defendant could learn for himself, but the Defendant then started rearranging her whole finances;

(b) taking the complainant to the bank quite frequently, then really frequently, including to attend to administrative tasks and, as I have found, likely at least on some occasions to withdraw cash; and

(c) taking the complainant to the bank and arranging with the bank for her to sign an authority granting the Defendant access to one of her accounts. In circumstances where the complainant's household bills were automatically coming out of one of her Beyond Bank accounts, it is not clear why it was desirable for the Defendant to have access to the complainant's account and, indeed, the complainant's evidence is that she did not need the Defendant's assistance to manage her finances but just decided to trust him. It is clear that it was the Defendant who convinced the complainant to give him access to her account and took the lead at the bank to put the relevant authority in place.

1. Secondly, nowhere in the Defendant's interview with police does he say that the complainant transferred money to him. He refers to taking cash out. While he refers in his email to Ms Valent to the complainant having transferred money to him, the transfers he states occurred are inconsistent with the bank statements. As I have found earlier in these reasons, the Defendant's statements to Ms Valent lack credibility.
2. Thirdly, the complainant did not recall making the transfers to the Defendant and did not know the Defendant's account numbers.
3. The Defendant points to the fact that the complainant had no specific recollection of whether or not she made the impugned transactions. As the Defendant submits, her evidence involved a degree of confusion and conjecture.
4. However, that is consistent with the complainant not having effected the transactions - which, she said, in varying degrees of certainty, was the case - and her attempt, in those circumstances to reconstruct what had happened.
5. The Defendant also submits that:

... the entirety of the complainant's evidence is infected with conjecture. There is simply no actual basis in recollection that founds any of her responses about the transfers. One would expect someone with a strong recollection of events that took place just weeks ago (as was the case at the time of the FVEIC) would answer definitively 'I didn't do X, I didn't do Y'.

1. However, it is hard to have a recollection of something that you never experienced and, in fairness to the complainant, she explained that her recovery was not complete when she was interviewed by police. She did her best to try to work out whether she had made any of the transactions but, because she had no recollection of the transactions (in my view, because she did not authorise or effect them), she had to do so using post-fact reasoning and reconstruction.
2. She was not confident enough to say, in relation to many of the transactions, that she definitely did not have a role in them, but that is understandable given that she was not well at the time. Nevertheless, she repeatedly indicated that she had not effected the transfers.
3. She said several times that the Defendant had taken money out of her account and that she did not realise that he was doing so. She said that she thought she would have remembered if she had made the transfers and, since she did not remember making any of them, she considered it highly unlikely that she did. In other parts of her evidence she said that, if a transfer was to the Defendant's account, she would not have been the one to effect the transaction. She said she was almost 100 per cent sure that she did not effect any transfers from her account to his.
4. Her later evidence emphasises this position. She confirmed that it was not a case that, having recovered from her mental health issues, she was embarrassed by what she had done while she was unwell, nor was it a case that she had made the transfers to keep her money out of the reach of Ms Valent and Mr Falzarano. She was clear that she did not effect the transfers.
5. The complainant said that she was horrified that the Defendant had let her down by making out that he was looking after the complainant when he was in fact trying to steal money from her. That evidence is consistent with what she told Ms Valent and Mr Falzarano, being that there were many transfers on her bank statement that she was not aware of and that she was very surprised when she discovered so much money had been taken from her account. That reaction is consistent with her recollection that she did not effect or authorise the transfers
6. Her answers did not reflect any antipathy towards the Defendant, contrary to position the Defendant suggested may have been the case. In this respect, I note that she gave evidence (as discussed already) that she would have been content to give the Defendant money in acknowledgment of the assistance he was giving her.
7. Fourthly, it is unlikely, if the complainant had made the transfers, for her to have transferred money to all three of the Defendant's accounts. It might make sense to transfer to one of the Defendant's CBA accounts, once he closed his Beyond Bank account, if that is the account number he had initially given to the complainant, but it is hard to understand why she would have transferred money to both CBA accounts. If, for example, the complainant had wanted to transfer money to the Defendant as reimbursement for household expenses (eg., food) and as a gift (eg., to contribute towards his car savings goal), the most likely way she would have done so would be to send two separate transfers to the same account or just send one transfer to the Defendant's account, and leave it to the Defendant to sort out the allocations within his accounts. She was not managing the Defendant's money and it is unlikely that she would have been concerned as to how the Defendant did so. Nor is it likely that the Defendant would have given her three accounts into which to transfer money, particularly in circumstances where he considered that her mental state was such that he should manage her finances.
8. Fifthly, while the complainant gave evidence that she did give certain gifts to the Defendant, there is no suggestion in her evidence that she did so by transferring money to him. In her FVEIC, she indicated that she had given him (or let him take out) money in the form of cash (perhaps being the $100 or $200 figures she referred to), and said that she bought a metal drawer cabinet for his tools, which cost about $600, a puffer jacket from Macpac and a t-shirt from Country Road. She also noted that she paid for their food costs and coffees when they went out. On her evidence, she would not have transferred money as reimbursement for any expenses incurred by the Defendant because she considered that she was paying for everything.
9. Further, the transfers that were made are inconsistent with the complainant having gifted money to the Defendant, both in terms of the overall amount that was transferred ($11,500) and the size of many of the transfers (including $400 on 27 June; $700 on 2 July; $3,000 on 10 July; $3,980 on 13 July (the date after the complainant was hospitalised); $1,000 on 27 July and $400 on 5 August). They are inconsistent with the transfers being gifts because they well-exceeded the figures that the complainant said that she would have been comfortable with, and because on several occasions the transfers resulted in most, if not all, of the sums that had been credited to the complainant's account being transferred to the Defendant's account. This explains why the transfers were made in what might seem like 'random clumps' (as the Defendant describes them) - they reflected the timing and amount of payments that were credited to the complainant's account during the relevant period.
10. I also note that, for the period 2 July 2023 to 19 July 2023, there are 25 entries in the complainant's account, with over half of those entries (14 debits) being transfers to one of the Defendant's accounts. There were otherwise three credits, at least one debit, and seven transactions of unknown character (which could have been credits, debits or a combination).
11. Gifting such a large proportion of the complainant's money is not consistent with a 'thank you payment'. While the complainant accepted that she made unwise financial decisions when unwell, there is no evidence that she was so unwell for the whole of the relevant period that she would take such an approach.
12. Sixthly, all of the impugned transfers except the first one were made during the period that the Defendant had authority to operate the complainant's account (29 June to 5 August 2023). If it had been the complainant who made the pre-hospitalisation transfers, I would have expected more transfers to have been made prior to 29 June 2023, rather than those payments having only commenced at about that time.
13. There were no transfers from the complainant's account to the Defendant's Beyond Bank car savings account between 6 June 2023 (when it was opened) and 27 June 2023 (when the first of the impugned transfers was made to that account). There were also no transfers from the complainant's account to the Defendant's general CBA account between 9 May 2023 (the beginning of the period covered by the bank statement for that account) and 2 July 2023 (when the first of the impugned transactions to that account was made). The Defendant's CBA car savings account was only opened on 29 June 2023.
14. While the first transfer, to the Defendant's Beyond Bank account, was made before the Defendant obtained authority to access the complainant's account, the complainant gave evidence (as noted above) that the Defendant watched the complainant using her banking app, which provides an explanation for how he could have made that transfer as well. As the complainant explained in her evidence in court, the Defendant often watched her transact on her phone, sitting right next to her, and could have seen her enter her PIN. I also note that this transfer was only made two days prior to the complainant obtaining access to the complainant's account. Having regard to all the other circumstances, including my satisfaction that it was the Defendant who made all of the transfers to the Defendant's CBA accounts, I am satisfied that this transfer was also made by the Defendant and not by the complainant.
15. Seventhly, during the period the Defendant had access to the complainant's account, most of the sums that were credited to the complainant's account from time to time were transferred to one of the Defendant's two CBA accounts on, or a short time after, the day the amounts were credited to the complainant's account - I note, in particular, that:

(a) between 2 and 4 July 2023, $200 was received into the complainant's account (in a single transaction) and, on 4 July 2023, $200 was then transferred to the Defendant's account (and a further $200 on 6 July 2023) (there were no other transactions between 2 and 6 July 2023);

(b) between 6 July and 10 July 2023, $3,000 was received into the complainant's account (in a single transaction) and, on 10 July 2023, $3,000 was transferred to the Defendant's accounts ($2,000 directly to the Defendant's car savings account) (there were no other transactions between 6 and 10 July 2023);

(c) between 10 and 13 July 2023, at least $4,952.28 was received into the complainant's account and, on 13 July 2023, $3,980 was transferred to the Defendant's accounts ($3,000 directly to the Defendant's car savings account) (there was only one other transaction between 10 and 13 July); and

(d) between 19 and 27 July 2023, $1,952 was received into the complainant's account (in a single transaction) and, on 27 July 2023, $1,000 was transferred to the Defendant's account (there were no other transactions between 19 and 27 July 2023).

1. As can be seen from the dates that I have identified, this pattern continued across both the pre and post-hospitalisation periods. As it was the Defendant who adopted that practice post-hospitalisation, this pattern indicates that it was also he who took that approach prior to the complainant's hospitalisation.
2. The only possible explanation in the circumstances for why the complainant would have taken that approach prior to her hospitalisation is that she was trying to put her money beyond Ms Valent's reach, however, for the reasons I have already articulated, I do not accept that she was motivated to do that.
3. In my view, that was a concern which motivated the Defendant's conduct, a concern which would have been particularly acute in the few days leading up to and after the complainant's hospitalisation, when the prospect that Ms Valent's powers under the power of attorney would soon be enlivened must have been obvious to him given his knowledge of the power of attorney and of the complainant's declining mental state. That view is consistent with the largest of the impugned transfers ($3,000 on 10 July 2023 and $3,980 on 13 July 2023, totalling $6,980) being made over those few days.
4. Eighthly, in a global sense, the majority of the money that was transferred from the complainant's account through the impugned transactions, both before and after the complainant's hospitalisation, ended up in the Defendant's CBA car savings account. As discussed below, this is consistent with the Defendant's objective of building his car savings account. It is not consistent with the complainant having effected or authorised any of the transfers because she did not agree to assist the Defendant to save for a car.

Why did the Defendant make the impugned transfers?

1. I find that, in a general sense, the Defendant wanted to use the complainant's account to assist him to build his car savings account.
2. Earlier in these reasons, I discussed why it is clear that the Defendant's Beyond Bank car savings account and his CBA car savings accounts were accounts that he established in order to save for a car, having copied the complainant's practice in that regard. In the previous section of these reasons, I discussed the pattern of transactions that the Defendant entered into during the period that he was able to access the complainant's account, being that most of the sums that were credited to the complainant's account from time to time were transferred to one of the Defendant's two CBA accounts on, or a short time after, the day the amounts were credited to the complainant's account.
3. In addition, I note that, during the relevant period:

(a) the Defendant transferred $400 to his Beyond Bank car savings account two days before he was authorised to operate the complainant's account;

(b) after the Defendant obtained access to the complainant's account, the Defendant transferred $9,850 from the complainant's account to one of the Defendant's two CBA accounts;

(c) of the sum of $9,850:

(i) $3,550 was transferred directly to the Defendant's car savings account ($500 prior to the complainant's hospitalisation and $3,050 after her hospitalisation) - meaning that $3,950 was transferred directly to one of the Defendant's car savings accounts (including the Beyond Bank account);

(ii) $6,300 was transferred to the Defendant's general CBA account ($3,600 prior to the complainant's hospitalisation and $2,700 after the complainant's hospitalisation)

(d) in addition to the sum of $6,300 that was transferred from the complainant's account to the Defendant's general CBA account, he also received $2,729.40 into that account from other sources (ignoring the sum of $5,000 that passed through that account on 29 June 2023 from the Beyond Bank account on its way to the CBA car savings account), comprising:

(i) pension payments totalling $2,489.40; and

(ii) $240 in cash.

(e) of the total sum of $9,029.40 ($6,300 + $2,729.40) that the Defendant received into his general CBA account, he transferred $7,345.60 to his CBA car savings account, he transferred $200 to another CBA account, he withdrew $100 and he spent $954.71. He increased the balance in his account by $367.58 (from $13.09 at the end of 29 June 2023 to $380.67 at the end of 5 August 2023);

(f) on several occasions, amounts were transferred from the Defendant's general CBA account to his car savings account in the same, or similar, amount to sums that had been recently transferred from the complainant's account to the Defendant's general account - namely:

(i) $200 was transferred from the complainant's account on 2 July 2023 to the Defendant's general CBA account, and $200 was transferred on the same day to the Defendant's car savings account;

(ii) $2,000 was transferred from the complainant's account on 10 July 2023 to the Defendant's general CBA account, and $2,000 was transferred on the same day to the Defendant's car savings account;

(iii) $980 was transferred from the complainant's account on 13 July 2023 to the Defendant's general CBA account, and $940 was transferred on the same day to the Defendant's car savings account (the Defendant also transferred $30 to his car savings account from a $30 cash deposit that had been made to his general CBA account that day); and

(iv) $400 was transferred from the complainant's account on 5 August 2023 to the Defendant's general CBA account, and $300 was transferred on the same day to the Defendant's car savings account;

(g) in addition to these transfers:

(i) as noted above, $3,950 was transferred directly to the Defendant's car savings accounts from the complainant's account, ($500 on 27 June 2023, $500 on 10 July 2023 and $3,000 on 13 July 2023); and

(ii) $1,000 was transferred from the complainant's account on 27 July 2023 to the Defendant's general CBA account, and $1,000 was transferred on 1 August 2023 to the Defendant's car savings account - however, I note that the Defendant also received a pension payment of $829.80 on 1 August 2023 and the amount transferred to the Defendant's CBA car savings account on 27 July 2023 was $275.60.

1. To contextualise these figures I note, by way of a summary of my findings with respect to the Defendant's intention in effecting the impugned transfers, that:

(a) there was no agreement that the Defendant would hold the complainant's money for her in his account, whether in order to put the money out of Ms Valent's reach (which was not a concern that the complainant held) or otherwise;

(b) the Defendant was given access to the complainant's account only to assist her look after her money (and, in that respect, he was not authorised to transfer money to his accounts and could only withdraw money for himself if he needed it);

(c) the complainant did not agree to give the Defendant money to contribute to his car savings account (and, in fact, there was no agreement that the complainant would give the Defendant money at all);

(d) the Defendant and the complainant had a discussion in which the Defendant said that he would try to match the amount that she had saved in her car savings account (which contained around $15,000);

(e) consistently with that discussion, the Defendant grew his car savings account during the period that he was able to access the complainant's account, from $8,103 on 28 June 2023 to $19,056.87 by 5 August 2023 (an increase of $10,953.87 over a period of around five weeks);

(f) $3,550 of that increase was funded directly by payments from the complainant's account (noting that the transfer of $400 on 27 June 2023 contributed to the initial savings amount that was transferred from the Defendant's Beyond Bank car savings account to his CBA car savings account prior to the Defendant obtaining access to the complainant's account);

(g) the balance of the increase ($7,403.87) was funded by a combination of transfers from the complainant's account ($6,300), the Defendant's pension payments ($2,489.40) and cash deposits ($240).

1. It is clear, from the above findings and my analysis of the bank statements, that:

(a) the Defendant was focused on building his CBA car savings account during the period he was able to access the complainant's account;

(b) he was heavily reliant on transfers from the complainant's account to achieve that purpose. At a minimum (that is, assuming both the "other" sources of money were transferred to his car savings account and the complainant's money was used for all the expenses that the Defendant incurred), $8,224.47 of the $10,953.87 increase was funded by transfers from the complainant's account ($10,953.87 - $2,729.40); and

(c) a large proportion of the money that the Defendant transferred from the complainant's account ended up in the Defendant's car savings account (at a minimum, $8,224.47 of the $9,850 that was transferred during that period).

1. In my view, the only rational inference that is compatible with the circumstances is that:

(a) the Defendant effected the impugned transfers as part of a course of conduct designed to bolster his car savings account;

(b) he knew he was not authorised to take money from the complainant's account for that purpose but did so anyway;

(c) as a consequence, it is clear that:

(i) his actions were dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people and he must have known that he had acted dishonestly; and

(ii) he intended to keep the money that ended up in his car savings account as his own (that is, an intention to permanently deprive the complainant of the money). This must have included an intention to represent the funds as his own, including if the plan to buy a car with the complainant ever eventuated as, otherwise, there was no reason (on the evidence which I accept) for him to have transferred the money to his car savings account.

1. As noted earlier in these reasons, the Defendant accepts that, if I was to find that he took the funds from the complainant's account for the purpose of appropriating them into his car savings account and to misrepresent the funds as his own, I would conclude that his conduct was dishonest.
2. The conclusion I have reached is, in my view, supported by the statements he made to police and in his email to Ms Valent which deliberately avoided disclosing that he had transferred money from the complainant's account to his. In my view, this conduct reflects the fact that the Defendant knew that he had acted dishonestly and is consistent with him having had an intention not to return the money to the complainant.
3. An intention to keep the funds is also consistent with his statement to Ms Valent, even once the transfers were discovered, that he did not want to return the money. While his explanation for taking that position was that he had lost property as a result of living with the complainant, the money was not his and he accepted in his email that he would have to return the money, yet he acknowledged that he did not want to. Had the transfers not been discovered, I do not consider that there is any prospect that he would have returned the money.

1. The Defendant submits that it is implausible that a man of modest means, having stolen around $10,000, would leave the money in his account and not spend it. As an initial observation, the Defendant likely did spend some of the money that he transferred from the complainant's account. He spent $954.71 during the period he was able to access the complainant's account.
2. Further, the fact that the Defendant transferred the money from the complainant's account for the purpose of bolstering his car savings account does provide an explanation for why, even though the Defendant was not in a particularly good financial position, he retained the majority of the money he had obtained from the complainant.
3. He was saving for a car and, given the discussion he and the complainant had had in relation to buying a car, including visiting a BMW dealership, must have thought that the complainant would follow through with the plan to buy a car together. As the Defendant submitted, it is possible that he believed that he would be able to share his life with the complainant.
4. As noted already, I find that the Defendant and the complainant had discussed buying a car together on the basis that the Defendant would try to save as much in his car savings account as the complainant had saved. The transfers of money from the complainant's account assisted him (together with the contributions from his pension payments that he was able to transfer to his car savings account during the relevant period) to achieve that goal.
5. Further, during the period that he made the transfers he was also living at the complainant's house, with household bills being paid automatically from one of the complainant's Beyond Bank accounts, and the Defendant therefore also had minimal expenses at that time, as reflected in the amounts he spent from the CBA general account. Accordingly, he did not need to spend any of the money he obtained and could focus on building his car savings account.
6. The Defendant also submitted that it is not plausible that the Defendant would take the complainant's money without authorisation, or take the money with the intention of keeping it for himself (including representing that the money was his), in circumstances where the transfers would inevitably be discovered because, as the Defendant knew, both the complainant and Ms Valent had oversight of the complainant's accounts. I agree that such a course of action does not appear to be well thought through, however I do not consider that I should assume that the Defendant was at all sophisticated.
7. The most obvious reason against making such an assumption is contained in the email he sent to Ms Valent, which makes assertions that are clearly untrue on even a cursory glance of the complainant's bank account records. These assertions were made even though the Defendant had knowledge of the charges that had been brought against him and the basis for those charges.
8. The untruths and misrepresentations contained in his statements to police and to Ms Valent all seek to avoid the uncontested fact that the Defendant made numerous transfers to his account once the complainant was hospitalised and the fact, as I have found, that he made numerous transfers before then, including transfers of substantial size in the few days prior to and after the complainant's hospitalisation. Adopting such a position would not be necessary if he held the money with the complainant's authority, or even if he thought that he did. He might not, as the Defendant submits, have thought that he would be believed by Ms Valent, but what reason did he have to mislead police if he had authority to make the transfers?
9. Perhaps he simply did not contemplate being caught. It is to be observed that the initial transfers were for smaller amounts ($400 on 27 June, $500 and $200 on 2 July, $200 on 4 July and $200 on 6 July 2023) that might have gone unnoticed. It was not until the few days leading up to and after the complainant's hospitalisation that the larger (and more noticeable) transfers were made ($500, $2000 and $500 on 10 July, $3,000 and $900 on 13 July 2023). It appears that the obvious deterioration in the complainant's mental state around 8 July 2023 provided a catalyst for these larger transfers and it may also have meant that the Defendant acted without thinking.
10. Perhaps he thought that he could say, if challenged, as he did in his email to Ms Valent, that the complainant made or authorised the transfers, including by convincing the complainant of that position. He knew, of course, that the complainant was not well.
11. Consistently with that possibility, I note that there are several statements in the Defendant's email to Ms Valent that seek to attribute responsibility to the complainant for conduct that I am satisfied the Defendant engaged in, namely:

(a) he asserts that he was wrong to trust the complainant, however I am satisfied that any misplacement of trust was the complainant's in trusting him that he would help her to look after her finances (particularly in the context of giving him access to her bank account);

(b) he states that it was the complainant who came up with the idea to save for a car together, whereas I am satisfied that the Defendant copied the complainant's practice of having and building a car savings account and it was he who later convinced her to buy a car together;

(c) he states that the complainant distrusted Ms Valent because she had access to the complainant's account, however, while the complainant was distrustful of Ms Valent, she was not concerned that Ms Valent would access the complainant's account - that was a concern that was held by the Defendant, who encouraged the complainant to revoke the power of attorney she had given Ms Valent;

(d) he states that the complainant transferred money to his account, whereas it was the Defendant who was doing so (even on his own case he admits making all of the post-hospitalisation transfers); and

(e) he states that he lost property because of the complainant, however I accept the complainant's evidence that it was the Defendant's decision to move his property to the complainant's house while he was living there.

1. I consider that the Defendant thus engaged in a deliberate strategy of victim blaming to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions.
2. Ultimately, I do not consider that it is implausible in the circumstances that the Defendant would take the complainant's money without authorisation.

1. The Prosecution relies on the statements that the Defendant made to Ms Valent in his email (that the complainant had transferred money to him and he did not know why, that $1,000 was being transferred every payday and that, while the transfers stopped, he was going to stop them anyway) as an 'Edwards' lie. That is, the Prosecution submits that the statements contained lies which demonstrate a consciousness of guilt on the Defendant's part and, thus, an implied admission of guilt.
2. I give myself what is known as an Edwards direction (from Edwards v The Queen (1993) 179 CLR 193). As the Defendant submitted, in order to use the Defendant's statements as a lie of implied admission, the Court must be satisfied that:

(a) the Defendant lied (that is, deliberately told an untruth);

(b) the lie relates to a material issue; and

(c) the lie was told out of a realisation of guilt - that is, because the Defendant feared that telling the truth would implicate him in the commission of the relevant offences. In this respect, I note that people do not always act rationally, and that a person may lie for reasons unrelated to a realisation of guilt. For example, a lie may be told out of panic, to escape an unjust accusation or to avoid a consequence extraneous to the offence.

1. If I am satisfied of these matters, I may take the lies into account as evidence of the Defendant's guilt. In this respect I note that the lies will not provide sufficient evidence of guilt on their own, but may be considered as part of all the facts relied on by the Prosecution.
2. The statements in the email clearly relate to a material issue, being the identity of the person who made the transfers and the reason why the transfers were made. The Defendant accepts that the statements relate to a material issue.
3. The Defendant submits that the statements did not contain lies and were not made out of a realisation of guilt. The Defendant submits that, while it is possible to construe the email as attempting to minimise the Defendant's conduct to eschew guilt, there are preferable interpretations. He says that the purpose of the email is to reconcile with Ms Valent and that telling the truth (as the Defendant puts it) - that the complainant had made regular transfers for the purpose of rewarding him for his assistance and/or in order to save for a car - would have frustrated that purpose. The Defendant submits that he was acutely aware that Ms Valent considered that the Defendant exploited the complainant and that he may have considered that she would have rejected what the Defendant submitted was the truth out of hand.
4. For the reasons I have set out earlier in these reasons, in considering the statements made in the email to Ms Valent, the statements in the Defendant's email that are relied on by the Prosecution were lies. The statements were untrue and the Defendant knew they were untrue. While the Defendant did not concede that he deliberately told an untruth, his submissions do not attempt to argue the contrary position.
5. The Defendant's submissions focus on the reason why the Defendant made the statements that he did. He submits that the statements comprised a clumsy attempt at presenting the story that gave the Defendant the best opportunity at reconciling with his daughter, knowing that she may have rejected the truth out of hand.
6. I do not accept the Defendant's explanation that Ms Valent would have rejected the truth out of hand. The obvious issue with the Defendant's submission is that the "truth" he relies on for this submission - that the complainant made regular transfers for the purpose of rewarding him for his assistance and/or in order to save for a car - is, at least in respect of the transfers made after the complainant's hospitalisation, inconsistent with his concession that he made those transfers, not the complainant. It is also inconsistent with my finding that the Defendant made all of the impugned transfers. If the Defendant had told the truth (which was, even on his case, that he made all of the post-hospitalisation transfers), Ms Valent would not have rejected that concession out of hand.
7. Further, it is clear that the Defendant told the lies that he did because he knew that he had done the wrong thing.
8. As noted earlier in these reasons, he also avoided disclosing to police that he made the transfers from the complainant's account. In circumstances where he knew that he had made the transfers, I infer that he avoided disclosing that fact to police because he knew he had done the wrong thing. He did not want it known that the transfers had been made because he knew he had made the transfers without authority. He must have also appreciated that taking the complainant's money without her authority was dishonest. Had he had authority, there would be no reason to avoid disclosing them to police.
9. The statements made to Ms Valent came after the Defendant had been charged in relation to each of the transfers and it was thus clear to the Defendant that the transfers had been discovered. His statements to Ms Valent accordingly went beyond his attempts to avoid discussing the transfers, as he had done with police, to a positive attempt to distance himself from the transfers and place responsibility for them firmly at the complainant's feet. As I have found, the Defendant deliberately engaged in a strategy of victim blaming to avoid taking responsibility for his own actions. The obvious explanation, in circumstances where he knew that he had made the transfers, is that he knew he had done so without authority and had therefore acted dishonestly.
10. In this context, it is to be kept in mind that Ms Valent was not only the Defendant's daughter but a witness in the hearing of the charges against him. The hearing was only a month away by the time he sent the email and it is hard to believe that his email was, at that time, focused on repairing his relationship with Ms Valent, except to the extent that such an outcome might improve his position in the proceedings.
11. In my view, the lies in the Defendant's email to Ms Valent were clearly self-serving attempts to avoid responsibility for the transfers by placing responsibility for them on the complainant. It is clear that he feared the truth - that it was the Defendant who effected the transfers - and it is clear from the concerted effort he made, through his statements to police and to Ms Valent, to avoid that truth that he did so because he knew he did not have authority to make the transfers and had therefore acted dishonestly.
12. Accordingly, I am satisfied that he told the lies in the email to Ms Valent because he feared that the truth would implicate him in the offences with which he had been charged. The truth would reveal both that he made the transfers without the complainant's authority to do so and that his conduct was dishonest. The obvious explanation for the telling the lies is that he wished to escape that consequence by attempting to convince Ms Valent to accept his version of events.
13. I am satisfied that the Defendant told lies to Ms Valent out of a consciousness of guilt. This finding provides further support for my findings that it was the Defendant who made all of the transfers and did so without the complainant's authority.

Purpose of transfers is to be considered individually

1. Despite the observations I have made as to the general reliance that the Defendant placed on the complainant's account in his efforts to build his car savings account, it is important to keep in mind that this is not a general deficiency case. The Defendant is charged with appropriating (or, on the statutory alternative charges, obtaining) money on 19 separate occasions. Each individual transfer must be considered.
2. As the Defendant submits, the Prosecution must prove, for each transfer, that the Defendant made the transfer, did so dishonestly, and, at the time of making the transfer, had an intention to permanently deprive the complainant of the funds. The Defendant accepts that, if I find that he intended to permanently deprive the complainant of the money (including by representing the funds in his car savings account as his own), his conduct will have been dishonest. In circumstances where his access to her bank account was premised on his representation that he would help her to look after her money while she was unwell and, as I have found, he must have appreciated that he was under an obligation to act in her interests in operating the account, the Defendant's concession is rightly made.
3. Accordingly, the critical question is: what was the Defendant's intention at the time he made each of the transfers.

Transfers made directly to one of the Defendant's car savings accounts

1. Having regard to the views I have expressed as to the Defendant's intention with respect to the money that ended up in his car savings account (being that he intended to keep that money and represent it as his own), the answer to the that question is clear with respect to the transfers that were made directly to the Defendant's car savings accounts. There is no alternative possibility to the conclusion that he intended, at the time he made the transfers, to appropriate the money for his car savings account and he therefore intended to permanently deprive the complainant of that money. The relevant charges in this respect are:

(a) 27 June 2023 - $400 transfer to Beyond Bank car savings account (charge 8211/24);

(b) 10 July 2023 - $500 transfer to CBA car savings account (charge 8219/24);

(c) 13 July 2023 - $3,000 transfer to CBA car savings account (charge 1147/24); and

(d) 15 July 2023 - $50 transfer to CBA car saving account (charge 8223/24).

1. The answer to the question is more difficult in relation to the other transfers, however, because there were several sources of money that came into the Defendant's general CBA account and he not only transferred money from his general account to his car savings account, but he also spent money on what might be described as household expenditure that could have been of benefit for the complainant (at least until the complainant was hospitalised). This included expenditure at, for example, Club Lime (seemingly for the Defendant and the complainant to swim there), homewares and home improvement stores (for example, Howards Storage World, Bed Bath N Table and Bunnings), grocery stores, chemist and vitamin stores, and cafés.
2. After the complainant's hospitalisation, I cannot see how any of the Defendant's expenditure from his general CBA account benefited the complainant. His expenditure was mainly on food, however there was a small amount spent on clothing and he made two small purchase at home-related stores ($4.89 at Bunnings and $3 at Kmart).
3. Accordingly, for the transfers that the Defendant made after the complainant's hospitalisation, I find that he intended to permanently deprive the complainant of that money, regardless of whether he subsequently transferred that money to his CBA car savings account. His intention was to use the money solely for his own benefit. To the extent that he used the complainant's money for personal expenditure rather than transferring to his CBA car savings account, I note that, in addition to the direct benefit he received from being able to use the complainant's money for his personal expenditure, it enabled him to transfer more of his pension to his car savings account.
4. I am also satisfied that transferring money to himself, to use for personal expenditure, was dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people, given that his access to the complainant's account was for the purposes of helping her to look after her money. However, with some reservation, I am not satisfied that he knew that his actions were dishonest, in circumstances where it is possible that the complainant had given the Defendant permission to withdraw money if he needed it. It is conceivable that the Defendant may have thought that that permission was sufficient to enable him to take money for living expenses while he was looking after the complainant's house when she was in hospital.
5. Ultimately, aside from the transfers the Defendant made directly to his car savings accounts, it is only in relation to those transfers of money to the Defendant's general CBA account which are matched by a corresponding transfer on the same day, in the same amount, to the Defendant's CBA car savings account, that I am satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Defendant had the intention, at the time of the initial transfer, to appropriate the funds for his car savings account.
6. In those cases, I am satisfied that the subsequent conduct of transferring the money to his CBA car savings account establishes that it was his intention at the time of the initial transfer to his general CBA account that the money would end up in his CBA car savings account. The relevant charges in this respect are:

(a) 2 July 2023 - $200 transfer to CBA general account (charge 8215/24); and

(b) 10 July 2023 - $2,000 transfer to CBA general account (charge 1146/24).

1. There are three transfers to the Defendant's general CBA account (two on 13 July 2023 and one on 5 August 2023, being the transfers the subject of charges 8220/24, 8221/24 and 8227/24) with respect to which there are corresponding entries on the same day involving transfers of similar amounts to the Defendant's car savings account. I consider that it is probable that the Defendant intended, at the time of the initial transfer, to appropriate the funds for his car savings account, but the different amounts subsequently transferred to the car savings account makes me question whether he knew what he intended to do with the money when he first transferred it to his general CBA account.
2. Further, even if it was clear that he was going to transfer some of the money to his car savings account, I cannot identify a proportion of the funds initially transferred that he intended, at the time of the initial transfer, to transfer to his car savings account. I do not consider that the fact that he later transferred a particular sum to his CBA car savings account, which differed from the amount he initially transferred, demonstrates that it was his intention at the time of initial transfer to ultimately transfer that sum to his car savings account.
3. I am not satisfied, for each of the remaining transfers, that it was the Defendant's intention, at the time he transferred money from the complainant's account to his general CBA account, that the money ultimately end up in his CBA car savings account. The money involved in these transfers was not immediately transferred to the Defendant's car savings account and he spent money at around the time of the transfers on expenses that either might have been of benefit to the complainant (in the pre-hospitalisation period) or which he might have thought he had permission to take to spent on personal expenditure (in the post-hospitalisation period). It is therefore possible that, at the time he transferred the money to his general CBA account, he intended to spend the money in that way. The relevant charges in this respect are:

(a) 2 July 2024 - $500 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8214/24);

(b) 4 July 2024 - $200 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8216/24);

(c) 6 July 2024 - $200 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8217/24);

(d) 10 July 2024 - $500 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8218/24);

(e) 15 July 2024 - $50 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8222/24);

(f) 18 July 2024 - $150 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8224/24);

(g) 19 July 2024 - $120 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8225/24); and

(h) 27 July 2024 - $1,000 transfer to general CBA account (charge 8226/24).

1. Having regard to my findings, the Prosecution's Statutory Alternative Submission falls away. Relatedly, I find that Prosecution cannot succeed on the statutory alternative charges of obtaining property by deception for any of the theft charges with respect to which I am not satisfied that all of the elements have been established. That is because the elements of the theft offences with respect to which I am not satisfied are common to the statutory alternative charges.

1. I find the Defendant guilty in relation to charges:

(a) 8211/24;

(b) 8219/24;

(c) 1147/24;

(d) 8223/24;

(e) 8215/24; and

(f) 1146/24

1. I find the Defendant not guilty in relation to charges:

(a) 8212/24;

(b) 8213/24

(c) 8220/24;

(d) 8221/24;

(e) 8227/24;

(f) 8214/24;

(g) 8216/24;

(h) 8217/24;

(i) 8218/24;

(j) 8222/24;

(k) 8224/24;

(l) 8225/24; and

(m) 8226/24.

I certify that the preceding two-hundred and sixty-two [262] numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Decision of his Honour Magistrate Temby.

Amounts received into account prior to 27 June unknown

Amounts received into account between 27 June and 2 July unknown

$200 received into account in one transaction (balance was the same on 2 July and after transfer to Defendant of $200 on 4 July)

$3,000 received into account in one transaction (payments totalling that sum transferred to Defendant on 10 July, with no transactions in between, and balance is the same on 6 July and end of 10 July transactions)

At least $4,952.28 received into account between 10 July and 13 July in one to two transactions with sums totalling $3,980 transferred to Defendant on 13 July [$3,980 + 1008.89 (end balance) - $36.61 (beginning balance = $4,952.28]

Transfer from BB Car Savi $50 ("Return Account Closed")

$1,952.28 received into account, with $1,000 transferred to Defendant on 27 July (no transactions in between) [$1,000+1056.67 (end balance) -$104.39 (beginning balance) = $1,952.28]

Transfer from BB Car Savi $50 ("Return Account Closed")

Amounts received between 27 July and 5 August unknown

Account balance improved from $13.09 at end of 29 June to $380.67 at end of 5 August