THE Townsville mining lease speculator who bought regional airline MacAir just a year ago appeared in Townsville Magistrates Court yesterday to answer seven-year-old charges of defrauding Centrelink of almost $10,000.
In an extraordinary tale of brazen behaviour, high-flying businessman/entrepreneur Terence John Burt, 66, who has often given his name as Birt or Byrt, has been hiding in plain sight for the past five-and-a-half years, although a warrant for his arrest has been active for all that time.
Mr Burt, whose multi-million dollar business exploits have appeared in the media often accompanied by his photograph, surrendered himself into the custody of federal authorities on Thursday when he flew into Townsville from Brisbane. Mr Burt was held in the watchhouse on Thursday night before he appeared to successfully seek bail yesterday.
His barrister, Harvey Walters, told the court that Mr Burt should be granted bail because he had given himself up, had surrendered his passport to his legal team to hand on to federal authorities, and the full amount of the fraud, some $9771, had been fully repaid.
Mr Walters said for those reasons alone he was not a flight risk, although he had failed to appear when required on three previous occasions, which triggered the issuing of the warrant on which he was eventually arrested.
Mr Walters said Mr Burt had made `a lot of money' from speculation in mining leases and last year bought MacAir.
Counsel said it was only after he was locked in that he discovered he faced a monthly loss of $60,000 for five years because of a government shortfall in subsidisation. MacAir is now in liquidation.
Mr Walters added that it was `borderline' that when the fraud charges came to court Mr Burt would be given a jail term.
Commonwealth Crown prosecutor Aaron Guilefoyle opposed bail, highlighting Mr Burt's criminal history for dishonesty and fraud offences stretching back to the early '80s.
Mr Guilefoyle said in 1994 in Mackay, Mr Burt was given a four-month prison term for fraud, the sentence wholly suspended for four years.
The prosecutor said the Centrelink fraud matters before the court yesterday, committed on three occasions in Cairns between 1998 and 2002, had started just a year after the Mackay suspended sentence ended.
Mr Guilefoyle argued that because Mr Burt had failed three times to appear on the matters now before the court, and had failed to surrender himself over the past five-and-a-half years despite knowing he was a wanted man made, there was a risk of him again not appearing and fleeing the jurisdiction.
He said that a prison term for the three frauds was in sentencing range and elevated the risk of flight.
Magistrate Scott Luxton disagreed that Mr Burt should remain in custody and granted bail but with conditions requested by the Commonwealth.
These were that he surrender his passport, not go near any international point of departure and live at a designated address at the Bohle.
Mr Burt, who was supported in the court by his daughter and a business associate, was remanded to appear again on May 11.
Last year, Townsville Bulletin business editor Tony Raggatt, when researching business documents, noted a number of different spellings of the name Burt (variously Birt and Byrt) and also unearthed the Mackay court matter.
When he queried this at the time, Mr Burt flatly denied he was the person involved in the Mackay matter, saying `It's nothing to do with me' and there had been a simple mix-up in spelling of his name on other documents.
The Townsville Bulletin chose not to publish this at the time, and took Mr Burt at his word.
However yesterday's court hearing was told that it was the publicity in this paper which eventually alerted authorities to Mr Burt's whereabouts and activities.
i was excited about the ansett ipo at a time( sure it would have been good to sell on 1st day or week), but after a few other things i read , and the deception with wavenet monto deal no way i would touch a stock with his associaton now , and glad i didnt
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