A pair of jurors have been dropped from a marathon multimillion-dollar tax fraud case, after one was searched by police mid-trial for a different alleged crime and officers discovered he had been covertly investigating the matter he was participating in.
However, NSW Supreme Court judge Desmond Fagan has stopped short of aborting the six month trial of George Alex and five others accused of conspiring to defraud the tax office of more than $10 million of PAYG tax, instead ordering the remaining jurors to “tell tales on each other” if they become aware of any further misconduct.
Justice Fagan had adjourned the court for the day after the Australian Federal Police searched the Sydney home of the rogue juror, known as Juror G.
Officers quickly learned the man was a juror in the unrelated criminal matter, and notified the court. As part of the search, police examined the juror’s phone and discovered he had been conducting prohibited internet searches related to the fraud trial.
At the time, Justice Fagan had been presiding over the matter for 71 days.
When court returned on Thursday morning, Justice Fagan said Juror G had been the subject of the unrelated AFP investigation.
He said despite the “emphatic, detailed instructions” he had given the jury every day to ensure they did not conduct their own searches separate to the evidence before them, Juror G “nevertheless went ahead” with his own internet inquiries.
“Under the Jury Act, I am obliged to discharge a juror who breached the act,” he said.
The court heard police arrived at the court on Wednesday afternoon to interview the remaining jurors. In the process of this, another juror – known as Juror A – was found to have been compromised after being in contact with Juror G, Justice Fagan said.
“There is no finding of misconduct of Juror A, but the communications of those two were somewhat close and repeated,” he told the court.
“(It leads) to a situation where I am satisfied that Juror A could not properly fulfil his duties as a juror.
“In relation to him, I have exercised my discretion to discharge him. I brought him into court this morning and explained the reasons and that he was no longer required to serve on the jury.”
Justice Fagan also said in the process of the police interviews, it was revealed three other members of the jury were aware Juror G was conducting his own internet investigation.
“It does not appear I ever did direct you in terms that if you became aware that one of your number were acting improperly … you should bring that to my attention,” he said.
“You must bring to my attention now if anyone breaches the direction I have so often repeated to you about not making independent inquiries.”
He apologised for being “heavy-handed” about the matter, but said if further jurors are compromised the case would “run the risk of being aborted and run again later, at a cost I leave to your imaginations”.
The trial, which began in February and is expected to last for about six months, relates to Mr Alex, his son Arthur Alex, Gordon McAndrew, Mark Ronald Bryers, Lindsay John Kirschberg and Pasquale Loccisano, who are accused of conspiring to not remit millions of dollars of pay-as-you-go withholding tax from the salaries of labour hire workers through a complicated network of businesses, causing a loss to the tax office.
All six men have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to cause a loss to the commonwealth from mid-2018 to mid-2020 in Sydney and the Gold Coast.
The alleged fraudsters have also denied conspiring to deal with $1m or more while knowing it was the proceeds of a crime.
On the first day of trial in February, Justice Fagan told the jurors to listen carefully to the evidence, and reminded them they are “absolutely forbidden” to conduct their own research into the allegations.
He reminded the jury of the “notorious” criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann, who was charged with raping Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2021.
The trial was abandoned in 2022 after a juror did their own research and discussed their findings with the other jurors.
A similar result for this trial would be “disastrous”, Justice Fagan told the 11 men and four women at the time.
Some 110 hours of conversations between the six accused men, which were either captured during tapped phone calls or by strategically placed listening devices, were given as evidence as part of the trial.
The devices were planted in January 2019 after the Australian Federal Police obtained a warrant as part of their national investigation into the alleged payroll fraud.
The trial continues.