Former Channel 7 newsreader Simone Semmens acquitted after prison stint for tax evasion
Former Channel 7 presenter Simone Semmens’ fraud conviction has been overturned, years after she was sent to prison.
Ms. Semmens spent more than a year behind bars after being found guilty of 10 charges of dishonestly harming the state following a jury trial in 2019.
The Miss Victoria winner spent several years in TV as a weekend presenter in Melbourne, then worked as a corporate spokesperson for Telstra before moving into property development.
At the hearing it was revealed that he had deliberately failed to pay GST when selling multimillion-dollar properties between June 2005 and December 2011, but was “dogged and determined”, insisting he owed nothing.
The case concerned three properties in Toorak, Caulfield and Portsea that Ms Semmens bought, subdivided, developed and sold over a lucrative 10-year period before coming to the attention of the tax office.
Sentencing Ms Semmens to 34 months’ imprisonment, with release after 14 months, Judge Scott Johns said “your fall from grace is dramatic”.
“Over the past 15 years there have been many stages where you could get advice, be reasonable, be honest, listen and negotiate a tax liability issue,” he said.
“It didn’t need to come to this, but it did. Your dishonesty is to blame, and perhaps your intransigence and stubbornness are also to blame.”
Ms Semmens appealed her conviction to the Victorian Court of Appeal; A three-judge panel here this week acquitted him of the charges.
Ms. Semmens, who represented herself in court, thanked the judges for their time and attention.
In a written judgment, Justices David Beach, Maree Kennedy and Terry Forrest identified three “irregularities” in the trial that they felt led to a serious miscarriage of justice.
These included language used by the prosecutor to suggest that Ms. Semmens had sold the property “GST inclusive,” pocketing money that should have been set aside for the IRS, and that the figures shown to the jury of about $1.74 million represented the amount due.
“The first and second errors meant that the jury could conclude that the appellant had actually engaged in a very different level of fraud (equivalent to theft) than that alleged,” they wrote.
“So essentially, given the way the prosecutor opened and closed the case, it appears to the jury that the case was opened on the basis that the applicant received $1.8 million belonging to the ATO, which he dishonestly misappropriated.”
The judges said this assessment would be “erroneous” as the case was framed on the basis of “immeasurable harm” as the actual GST liability was a complex calculation.
Justices Beach, Kennedy and Forrest found that although the evidence in Ms Semmens’ case was “sufficient to justify her conviction”, they would not order a new trial at the insistence of the Crown.
“The applicant has already served his full sentence, endured significant stress and reintegrated into society,” they said.
“In our view, the interests of justice do not require another lengthy and complex hearing in the circumstances of this particular case.”
Instead, an acquittal was given on all 10 charges.
