A former senior financial adviser has been convicted and sentenced by the Sydney District Court after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) found that he used client funds to fuel a gambling addiction.
James Patrick Hobson was sentenced on four counts to two years imprisonment, suspended on the offender entering into a two-year good behaviour bond, and on a fifth count, sentenced to five years good behaviour, ASIC stated.
According to the regulator, the Court imposed the longest period of supervision available under the legislation, and Hobson would be resentenced to full-time imprisonment should he commit any crime in that five-year period.
As an employee of Binma Pty Ltd – which operates the North Sydney firm Noall & Co and was an authorised representative of Professional Investment Services – Hobson "misappropriated $307,000 and attempted to misappropriate $120,000 of client funds" between March and August 2008, the Court stated.
In each instance, the funds were provided to him after the provision of advice to invest in international shares via a product called 'Skandia', ASIC said.
"This type of behaviour undermines the trust and confidence which clients place in their financial advisers, and illustrates that advisers who commit fraud face criminal conviction," said ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer.
Hobson has been banned permanently from providing financial services as a result of his conviction.
In separate case, ASIC recently obtained court orders from the NSW Supreme Court preventing a Sydney financial adviser from carrying on a financial services business.
ASIC alleged Melinda Scott had been involved in suspected fraud and the Court injunction has subsequently prevented the companies Roach Graham Scott and Roch Scott – of which Scott is a director – from carrying on business and restrains them from the disposing of any property.
Scott was an authorised representative of Millenium 3 Financial Services – a financial advice business owned by ANZ. Her authorisation was revoked on 15 May 2012 and the matter returns to the Sydney District Court on 18 June 2012.
