A former Channel Seven newsreader has labelled the Australian Tax Office ‘disgraceful’ after her fraud convictions were overturned, years after she was jailed.
Simone Semmens spent 14 months behind bars after a jury found her guilty in 2019 of 10 counts of deceitfully causing a loss to the Commonwealth.
Ms Semmens, a former Ms Victoria beauty pageant winner, had worked as a weekend TV presenter in Melbourne before later moving into property development.
She was accused of deliberately failing to pay GST on the sale of multimillion-dollar properties she had bought and subdivided between June 2001 and December 2011.
After an audit, the ATO alleged she intentionally avoided paying $1.74 million in GST.
But after serving 14 months in prison, Ms Semmens successfully appealed her convictions in the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal last week.
She told news.com.au the legal battle with the ATO had been ‘a harrowing ordeal’, but said she felt compelled to fight the case so she could travel overseas to visit her son.
Ms Semmens, who represented herself in court despite having no legal background, said she now feels vindicated after what she described as unfair treatment by the tax office.
Simone Semmens spent 14 months in jail after a jury found her guilty of causing a loss to the Commonwealth following a trial in 2019
Ms Semmens was once a Channel 7 presenter before getting into property
‘This was not something I had any training in, but I worked very, very hard,’ she said.
She is now contemplating a compensation claim for her time spent in prison and said it was disgraceful that the ATO wasted so much taxpayer money on the case.
‘I certainly have some serious complaints about the way in which the investigation was handled by the tax office,’ she said.
‘It’s millions of dollars.’
In a written judgment, Justices David Beach, Maree Kennedy and Terry Forrest acknowledged three ‘irregularities’ in the trial, which they said led to a miscarriage of justice in the way the jury was led through the case.
They found the prosecutor suggested Ms Semmens sold the properties GST-inclusive and implied she pocketed the $1.74million that should have been set aside for the ATO.
‘The first and second errors meant that the jury might reason that the applicant had engaged in a very different level of dishonesty – tantamount to theft – from that which was actually alleged,’ they said.
‘In essence, then, given the way the prosecutor opened and closed his case, the jury can be taken to have understood that the case was put on the basis that the applicant received $1.8million belonging to the ATO which she dishonestly misappropriated.’
Ms Semmens branded the ATO a disgrace following the verdict
Simone Semmens leaves court in Melbourne
The appeals panel said it would not order a fresh trial, and an acquittal was entered on all 10 charges Ms Semmens had been convicted of.
‘The applicant has already served her entire sentence, endured significant stress, and re-entered the community,’ the appeals panel said.
‘The offences also concern events which took place many years ago, in circumstances where memories of witnesses have already been adversely affected.
‘In our view, the interests of justice do not require another lengthy and complex trial to be held in the circumstances of this particular case.’
Daily Mail contacted the ATO for comment.
