By Jesse Graham
HEALESVILLE’S former chamber of commerce president will avoid a jail term and serve 200 hours of community work for 48 counts of fraud, after a County Court appeal on Monday.
Graham Taylor, 60, appeared at the County Court of Victoria on Monday, 12 September, to appeal a nine-month jail sentence handed down in May.
The sentence came after he pleaded guilty in April to 48 charges of fraud and deception, where he stole money from people’s credit cards; stole money and wine from Rochford Wines, where he worked; used credit cards falsely to purchase concert tickets and stole money from the Healesville Chamber of Commerce, where he was president until his arrest in 2015.
The Mail reported that Taylor used credit cards 33 times for cash advances, and on one occasion stole wine from Rochford for a victim, to maintain the guise of having used their credit card legitimately.
After being sentenced to jail in May, Taylor lodged an appeal with the County Court, and Judge Lisa Hannan set aside the nine-month sentence, in favour of a Community Corrections Order.
Under the order, Taylor must complete 200 hours of unpaid community work in the next 18 months, undergo testing and rehabilitation for mental health issues and have a DNA sample taken to be placed on a police database.
Judge Hannan said she had to give consideration to whether the sentence would deter others considering doing the same crime, as well as Taylor himself from re-offending.
Judge Hannan noted that Taylor had been previously convicted for fraud and deception – where he kept cash payments and used customers’ credit cards in 2006 to steal $17,800 from a conference centre where he worked – and said his recent offending “wasn’t a one-off lapse of judgement”.
“This was an ongoing course of conduct,” she said.
“What is abundantly clear to me is that, despite this ongoing criminal behaviour, you have nevertheless been a contributor to the community in which you live.
“As the prosecutor points out, in some respects that facilitated the offending – members of the community felt comfortable enough to give you their credit card numbers because of, presumably, your standing within the community – you used that standing in order to facilitate the offending, be that consciously or unconsciously.”
Judge Hannan noted Taylor’s “significant contributions” to the community, and said it aided his case, but warned him that any breach of his order would land him in jail.
“This is your last opportunity,” she said.
“Any breach comes back before me – it doesn’t come back before some other judge, it comes back before me – you might as well hold your hand up and say, ‘Send me to jail’, because that is what I’ll do.”
