$50K PUB PUNT FAIL
Worker blows hotel’s cash over five hours
A MUG punter stole $50,000 from a Newtown pub in a losing streak he bankrolled with the hotel’s TAB account while working there.
Jonathan Bush, 28, lost the money in five hours during his shift at The Gold Diggers Hotel on July 9, losing 20 bets in a row on faux electronic horse races.
In a victim impact statement presented to Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday, hotel owner Richard Kelly said he might be forced to lay-off staff because of the debts Bush racked up.
Magistrate Ann McGarvie said the Belmont man’s betrayal was made worse by the fact Mr Kelly had trusted him despite knowing he had previous convictions for deception matters.
The court was told Bush was working unsupervised in the TAB bar when he laid his first $50 bet from the business account as he tried to win a small amount of money to buy cigarettes and petrol after his shift.
Repeatedly backing horse No.1, he had mixed luck in his first 10 bets before a string of 20 successive losses.
Police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Geoff Lamb said the man’s outlay mounted as he chased his losses, and the final bet of his splurge cost $12,500.
In total, he spent $50,475 from the hotel’s account, with his losses leaving a debt of $48,625.
Magistrate Ann McGarvie said Bush had committed a “serious breach of trust”, while defence lawyer Adrian Paull attributed the man’s behaviour to an inability to resist temp- tation, control his impulses and a drug habit.
“It’s a very short flurry of offending that spiralled out of control very quickly,” Mr Paull said. “It gets completely away from him.”
The court heard Bush, father of a small child, was immediately and genuinely remorseful for his actions, and walked into the next room after laying the final bet, and told his manager what he had done.
The following day he sent his boss a message, apologising, and offering to pay off the debt. He said he could access part of his superannuation entitlements, and also offered to work off the money owed, but acknowledged why the em- ployer might not be willing to allow this.
Mr Paull said his client had previously been implicated in dodgy applications for bank loans, describing his prior offences as “similar proactive deception”.
He conceded it was no longer appropriate the man have a job with access to money, revealing he had moved to Bendigo to live with his parents, where earthmoving work was on offer.
But Ms McGarvie said she had to jail him, noting the impact the crime has had on Mr Kelly, his family and his business.
“I don’t think I’ve got any other option; $48,000 from an employer with two priors,” she said.
On a count of obtaining financial advantage by deception, Bush was jailed for six months. He was also ordered to repay the $48,625 owed to The Gold Diggers Hotel.
When released he will go back on the corrections orders he breached by his latest offences, with extra unpaid community work and offender programs to complete.