Private Investigator Training

SALLY GLAETZER

May 26, 2010 12:01am

MARK Saxby went to great lengths to avoid paying his taxes and did not show the slightest bit of remorse for his crimes.

He told the jury in his tax fraud trial he believed he could take as much cash as he liked out of the tills of his Hobart Banjo's store because the money was his.

But by skimming more than $100,000 a year from the business and failing to declare it as income, Saxby cheated the Commonwealth out of serious amounts of money.

Tax office auditors admitted it was partly the high profile of Saxby and his Banjo's bakery chain that made him an ideal candidate for prosecution.

The former baker started Banjo's in the 1980s and watched it grow into a successful franchise chain of 36 stores around Australia.

He enjoyed his success, revelling in such luxuries as his Nutgrove Beach mansion, an East Coast holiday home complete with a tennis court, boats and fast cars.

He raced his BMW M3 and Porsche 911 in Targa Tasmania and shouted his employees expensive holidays.

In 1992, Saxby introduced the practice of skimming cash from the till of his Banjo's store in Elizabeth St, Hobart.

His then-wife Sandra gave evidence that she taught employees to take $1000 from the till each Saturday, Sunday and public holiday.

The daily sales sheets were altered to hide the skimming and the Saxbys kept the undeclared cash at home in a drawer.

The money was used to pay for landscaping around the couple's Pontypool holiday home, a $30,000 staircase, general living expenses and Mr Saxby's boat.

Banjo's franchisees told the court they, too, were taught to "doctor the tills" and they shared the skimmed money from their own stores with the Saxbys.

One franchisee said the dodgy practice was "ramped up" ahead of a group business trip to Germany to provide everyone with spending money.

The extent to which Saxby would go to deceive the tax man became clear in 1999 when he learned ATO auditors wanted to interview the staff who had routinely adjusted the daily sales sheets.

Saxby asked the three female employees to lie for him and promised to reward them.

One woman was rewarded with a $20,000 car, another received $20,000 in pay rises and the third received $25,000.

Saxby told the jury he legitimately took money from the till to make immediate business purchases including office furniture or fresh produce that was going cheap.

Anything taken for personal use was recorded and subject to tax, he said.

Justice Alan Blow rejected that evidence as lies.

Saxby's life came tumbling down around him in 2006 when the women he had bribed to lie for him confessed all to the Australian Federal Police.

The media frenzy surrounding his downfall took off later that year when the Banjo's head office was raided.

Saxby was arrested and charged with defrauding the Commonwealth in early 2007.

Sentencing Saxby to a year in jail yesterday, Justice Blow said the penalty would be "more acute" given the standing in the community Saxby had enjoyed before his crimes were revealed.

Numerous character witnesses attested to Saxby's good character.

The court heard he gave un-sold baked goods to charities and did all he could to support family, friends and colleagues.

Like Saxby, his family members appear blind to his wrongdoing and feel he has been wrongly persecuted.

"He used to love going to work and now that's been taken from him," his daughter Jessica Saxby told the court last week.

His mother Shirley said: "He's always been brought up with the morals of honesty and truthfulness."

Justice Blow said there was no doubt Saxby was an exemplary citizen and father, apart from his offending.

"However, it is fair to say that the evidence as to his involvement in tax evasion ... has revealed another aspect of his character that was apparently not seen by the witnesses who gave evidence for him," Justice Blow said.

He rejected Saxby's lawyer's argument that he should be credited for the huge amounts of tax he has paid.

"Taxpayers with high incomes have to pay large amounts of tax," Justice Blow said. "I see no reason why Mr Saxby should get special credit for having obeyed the law in that respect most of the time."

Saxby's partner Rachael Schubert was visibly distressed as she left court yesterday after bidding him farewell.

She and character witnesses said Saxby was a changed man as a result of the criminal charges, as evidenced by his dramatic weight gain.

He suffers high cholesterol, type two diabetes with renal impairment, hypertension, obesity, vertigo, a fatty liver, and exercise induced anaphylaxis.

But that was not enough to spare him a stint in jail.

If Saxby does appeal against his conviction, as his lawyer has indicated, the process will no doubt delay the financial penalty he must pay.

However, Justice Blow said there was no dispute that the Commonwealth would recoup all it was owed from Saxby, plus a hefty penalty tax.

A restraining order has been placed on his holiday home under the Proceeds of Crime Act and Commonwealth prosecutors are pursuing him for more than $900,000.