SA MP Troy Bell found guilty on 20 counts of theft
A jury has found South Australian MP Troy Bell guilty of theft and dishonesty charges for stealing more than $436,000 from an educational not-for-profit.
The jury of eight women and four men returned their verdicts on Thursday night after a three-month trial in the SA District Court and more than two days of deliberations.
The independent member for Mount Gambier had pleaded not guilty to 20 counts of theft and six counts of dishonestly dealing with documents, allegedly committed between 2009 and 2013.
Bell was found guilty of 20 counts of theft, with 18 verdicts unanimous and two by majority. He sighed heavily in the courtroom when the first guilty verdict was read out.
The jury found him guilty of five counts of dishonestly dealing with documents, with aggravation of abusing a position of trust or authority found to be proven on each count.
Bell was found not guilty of one charge of dishonestly dealing with documents.
The trial, which began in June, heard evidence that Bell, 50, abused his position as an Education Department employee to steal more than $430,000 meant to help vulnerable high school students and used it to fund property investments and pay debts.
The charges were first laid in 2017 and stemmed from an Independent Commission Against Corruption Investigation.
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Much of the trial has focused on the movement of money between bank accounts and included five days of evidence from a forensic accountant.
During the trial, prosecutor Jemma Litster said there had been “backwards” transfers between Bell’s personal accounts and the not-for-profits’ accounts “but there was still $436,023 that went out that didn’t come back”.
Litster said there was no doubt Bell was a man who was well liked by most people, with evidence that his personality and the way he interacted with people engendered trust and goodwill towards him.
“It’s the prosecution case that he abused that trust and goodwill. That’s one of the reasons why his fraud went unnoticed for so long,” she said.
“It’s just human nature. I suggest people are less likely to challenge or scrutinise the conduct of someone who they like or someone who they admire.”
In his closing address, defence counsel Nicholas Healy said the prosecution case has “more holes than a Balfours crumpet” and described the prosecution case as “a trial by vibe”.
“We are not characters in the iconic Australian film The Castle. The system (the prosecution alleges Bell used) is akin to ‘the vibe’,” he said.
Judge Rauf Soulio thanked the jury for being “very dedicated” to a “very difficult task that involved obvious sacrifice”.
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He exempted them from future jury service.
Bell was remanded to reappear for a directions hearing on October 15, ahead of a date being set for sentencing submissions.
He made no comment outside court.
Bell was elected as the Liberal Party MP for Mount Gambier at the 2014 state election.
He quit the party in August 2017 when the charges were first laid but remained in parliament as an independent, maintaining his innocence and resisting calls from the Labor Party to resign.
Since then, he has twice been re-elected and at the last election expanded his margin over the Liberal Party to 13.1 per cent.
In 2022, he saw off Liberal Party candidate Ben Hood on a two-party preferred margin of 63.1 per cent to 36.9 per cent.
Hood, from the party’s Right faction, was a year later preselected to fill a vacancy in the Upper House. He has since been elevated to the high-profile Transport and Infrastructure portfolio on fledgling Opposition leader Vincent Tarzia’s frontbench.
Today’s verdict will raise fresh questions about Bell’s position in the parliament. If the Independent MP were to vacate his seat, the Liberal Party would more than likely win Mount Gambier in the ensuing by-election.
The Liberal Party has already opened up preselection “expressions of interest” for the seat.
– AAP with InDaily
