Former AFL player Nick Stevens always intended to install legally compliant pools, jury told

Lawyers for a former AFL star accused of defrauding customers of his pool installation business have told a jury he planned to complete the work.

Nick Stevens, who played 231 games between Port Adelaide and Carlton, is on trial in the District Court of Victoria, accused of defrauding six customers in the regional city of Mildura. He pleaded not guilty.

The jury was told that throughout 2017 Mr Stevens signed contracts to install swimming pools for a total of $171,000.

By early the following year, each project remained in various stages of completion and neither project had received permission from Mildura council before Mr Stevens moved to Melbourne and stopped responding to clients, prosecutors allege.

Throughout the trial, the jury heard from other customers whose backyards were left with holes and whose pools were of “poor quality”.

Four were left out of pocket, with one customer receiving a full refund and another receiving a partial refund.

Prosecutors allege Mr. Stevens never intended to establish legally compliant pools and instead took the money for his own gain.

He pleaded not guilty to 13 charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception and one charge of using false documents.

Addressing the jury on Tuesday, defense attorney Jim Stavris said his client was clearly in financial trouble by the end of 2017, but the real issue in the case was Mr. Stevens’ intentions when he made the deal with his clients.

“There is no evidence that Mr. Stevens did not intend to establish a legally compliant pool when he signed the agreement,” he said.

The court was told that at the beginning of 2017 Mr Stevens ran a landscaping business in Mildura before moving into the pool business and becoming a Leisure Pools distributor.

Mr Stavris said his client paid Melbourne builder Brian McDonnell $10,000 for training and his company installed six legally compliant pools under Bricol’s supervision, paying $1500 each time for Bricol to arrange permits.

Prosecutors allege Mr Stevens decided to go out on his own, knowing he could not meet the legal requirements for the pool installation because he was not a registered builder.

On the witness stand, Mr. Stevens disputed this, saying he believed his business relationship with Mr. McDonnell continued to fill out forms for permits and appointed a building inspector.

“I was involved in signing the paperwork and giving it to Brian. Brian always got the permits,” he said.

Prosecutor Toni Stokes said in her closing statement that Mr Stevens’ account was in “clear contrast” to the evidence in the case, saying “almost all” of his clients did not remember signing documents and no record of them existed.

Mr Stavris said his working relationship with Bricol “continued and was never terminated” but suggested Mr McDonnell was “frightened” by an angry appeal from a representative of the Swimming Pool and Spas Association (SPASA), who was unhappy with his deal with Mr Stevens.

“The fact that he was there to help obtain six permits for six jobs is evidence enough that an arrangement exists,” he said.

Mr Stavris suggested the working relationship between Mr McDonnell and Mr Stevens was akin to “licensing”, a practice frowned upon by the Victorian Construction Authority.

In the witness box, Mr McDonnell described that description as “100 per cent wrong” but accepted that he did not want SPASA to support Mr Stevens.

After six legally compliant pools, he said he received no further business from Mr. Stevens.

But Mr. Stavris argued to the jury that there was no evidence the relationship had ended and that Mr. Stevens operated under the belief that he would obtain approved permits once the pools were installed.

He told the court his client had been involved in disputes with Leisure Pools and a transport company which resulted in pools not being delivered by the end of 2017, but Mr Stevens had done the work by ordering pools, digging holes and fixing mistakes.

“You don’t have to be Einstein to think that his back was against the wall in late December 2017,” Mr. Stavris said.

“He started out thinking the permits would come… If his intention wasn’t to do the job properly and just take their money, he would have run away with their money.”

The trial continues.