A corrupt West Australian public servant, who was wined, dined and given interstate and overseas travel in exchange for government work, has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years jail.
John Bartleigh Fullerton, 66, was a senior bureaucrat in the North Metropolitan Health service when he developed corrupt relationships with four contractors.
Over six-and-a-half years, their businesses were repeatedly awarded contracts for government work by Fullerton, who in return was given flights to Melbourne, Sydney, Bali, the United States and Canada.
The accommodation expenses for Fullerton and his wife were also paid for, and on some of the trips, he was taken out for lavish meals and given AFL grand final tickets and sightseeing tours.
Taxpayers billed for home renovations
In total, the four contractors were awarded around $10 million in government work, while the benefits given to Fullerton were estimated to be worth around $132,000.
Fullerton's crimes were exposed in 2018 after an investigation by the Corruption and Crime Commission, which in its report, tabled in state parliament, also found he had billed the taxpayer for renovations to his home.
Fullerton was originally facing 47 charges and had been due to stand trial earlier this month, but late last year, prosecutors accepted his guilty pleas to 16 corruption offences.
The charges all related to the kickbacks he received for favouring the four contractors.
Three of them pleaded guilty in 2020 to the charges they faced. One was jailed for 19 months, a second was handed a suspended nine-month term, while the third was fined.
The fourth, labelled "the fixer "by the CCC, because he worked with Fullerton and arranged it all, took his own life.
The District Court was told on Thursday, at the time of the offences, Fullerton's annual salary would have been around $150,000 a year and in 2016 he also took a voluntary redundancy from the Health Department.
'The work was done'
Fullerton's barrister, Marc Saupin, said his client's offences were not a case of money flowing into his personal accounts, because the work was done.
"There's no suggestion the work was not done on time or on budget ... at the end of the day the work was done," Dr Saupin said.
"No one is suggesting it was poor or shoddy."
However, State Prosecutor Sarah Jessup told the court it would never be known if the taxpayer got value for money.
"Whatever [Fullerton] might say ... the nature of the relationships are such that the work done will be inextricably tainted," Ms Jessup submitted.
"This is much more insidious because we will never know."
Offending 'prolonged, calculated, systemic'
Judge Wendy Gillan did not accept that Fullerton was remorseful for what he had done, noting that in reports presented to the court for his sentencing, there was "an element of blame on the contractors who curried favour" with him.
She described the offending as "an example of prolonged, calculated and systemic dishonest behaviour."
"This type of corruption affects the integrity of the public service ... it does bring the government into disrepute," she told the 66-year-old.
Judge Gillan said the offences were too serious for any other sentence than a term of immediate prison.
Taking into account Fullerton's pleas of guilty, which saved the state the expense of a trial, she sentenced him to four-and-a-half years jail.
He will have to serve two-and-a-half years before he can be released.
After the sentencing, Fullerton's lawyer David McKenzie, said the 30 or so other charges that his client were facing were dropped after negotiations with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
"All the charges that were removed were not correct. So, we ended up [with] Mr Fullerton pleading guilty to those that were correct," Mr McKenzie said.
"The public really has a right to have everything done justly and that's what's happened."
