Foster dad jailed over kickbacks

A GOLD Coast public servant who fostered more than 100 needy children has been sentenced to four months jail after receiving more than $100,000 in secret kickbacks while working as manager at the Tallebudgera Active Recreation Centre.

Paul Timothy Vasey, 59, yesterday pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court to 47 counts of receiving secret commissions and one court of fraud.

The secret commissions related to $110,000 in “manager’s fees” Vasey took from a man he hired to work as a cleaner at the Centre.

The court heard Vasey took the “fees” from the man between 2003 and 2008, sometimes in quantities of $2-3,000 per month.

The fraud charge related to a fraudulent invoice scheme which saw Mr Vasey prepare invoices totalling $44,965.90 which were paid to a man dating his daughter for work that was never completed.

Once the invoice was paid, the man would withdraw half the money from an ATM and give it to Vasey.

The court heard Vasey received more than $22,000 from the scheme, which ran over a period of eight months during 2003.

Vasey was sentenced to a head sentence of four and a half years jail but will be released after serving four months.

Mr Vasey was charged in 2014 after an investigation was launched by the Crime and Misconduct Commission.

The court heard there was a delay in the matter coming before the courts because Vasey’s wife was dying of cancer and the CMC held off charging him on sympathetic grounds.

In sentencing, Judge Catherine Muir said apart from the offending Vasey was of good character and a generous person, who had fostered some 100 children in his lifetime.