NSW Fair Trading has revised down the amount of money it claims disgraced Warilla real estate agent Megan Harrod stole from her family business, as it was revealed the senior investigator on the case and an expert forensic accountant appointed by the consumer watchdog had arrived at different conclusions about how much was taken.
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Prosecutor David Shepherd, representing Fair Trading, told Parramatta District Court on Tuesday the authority was relying on a new figure of $1.3 million, down from the $1.5 million it had originally claimed.
It was not immediately clear in court whether the revised sum was linked to the findings of the senior investigator, Edmund Bishara, or the forensic accountant, Matt Fehon. Nor was it clear how much each believed had been siphoned - only that their final figures were different.
Harrod pleaded guilty in December 2013 to two charges of fraudulently converting money as a licensee, after confessing to swiping money from rent and sales trust accounts linked to her family-run company Harrod's Real Estate, to fund an insatiable gambling habit.
However, Harrod disputes the overall dollar amount Fair Trading alleges she took over the two-year period between 2010 and early 2012, claiming the total figure was approximately $522,000.
She did however, concede to some of the figures, including taking $65,000 from the rent trust account and keeping $93,000 worth of bonds she was supposed to lodge with the Rental Bond Board.
The court heard Harrod, the ex-wife of NRL great Kevin "Horrie" Hastings and mother of Roosters playmaker Jackson Hastings, used the money to support pokie binges at multiple licensed premises in the Illawarra and Sydney.
Records from Wests Illawarra and the Shellharbour Workers Club show Harrod gambled upwards of $10 million on pokies over a seven-year period.
Club records reveal she won $9.1 million in the same period.
In court on Tuesday, Mr Bishara said he found evidence of 37 cheques from Shellharbour Workers' Club that were banked into the company's rental trust account between 2009 and 2012.
When he asked Harrod to explain, she told him the cheques were some of her gambling winnings from the club, which she split "50/50" - putting half the money back into the trust accounts to cover the money she'd previously taken out, and keeping the other half for herself.
Mr Bishara said Harrod had been trying to cover her tracks by using fake transactions, falsified bank reports and dodgy bookkeeping records to give the appearance the accounts were balanced.
He pointed to one such transaction, of $50,500, which was attributed as a payment from a landlord, however Harrod later admitted this person had not been with the company for more than two years, and the record was false.
In another case, Harrod collected $560 in rent from a tenant, but only paid $280 into the rental trust account, keeping the remaining $280 for herself.
The hearing continues.
