Nick Stevens, a former Carlton and Port Adelaide footballer, has been jailed for nine months after a jury found him guilty of deceiving six regional families over swimming pools, taking about $158,000 while leaving some with non-compliant installs or unfilled
Nick Stevens left families with empty backyards and paperwork they couldn’t trust.
On Monday, the 46-year-old ex-Carlton and Port Adelaide player was sentenced to nine months in jail after being found guilty by a jury on 12 charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, along with one count of using a false document. He was acquitted of one charge.
The court heard Stevens stole about $158,000 from six families in regional areas through his pool business in 2017. Prosecutors found that although he installed six legally compliant pools under the supervision of a registered builder. he later worked on other jobs on his own without proper licence. registration. permits or insurance.
That pattern left some families with non-compliant pools and others with unfilled holes in their yards.
The offences ran through council procedures as well. At no point during the period of offending was Stevens registered as a builder. and no permit applications for the projects were lodged with Mildura Council. Even after the council issued stop-work orders at multiple homes. he continued to take deposits and further payments from other families with the promise he would deliver and install legally compliant swimming pools.
Judge Fiona Todd said the deception continued even after authorities made their position clear. “You did this even when you knew the consequences of your false representations was for the council to arrive and stop the work,” she said.
Her words carried a specific bitterness because of how the scheme was carried out. Stevens also sent a fake receipt to a pool company so the company would deliver a pool shell that had not been paid for.
For many of his victims, the impact wasn’t abstract. The judge said many were retirees or close to retirement and could not afford to fix what had gone wrong. One family, she said, took out a loan to fund work he never did.
Todd described the human toll in a way that stuck. “Some despaired when they found themselves having to explain the absence of a long-promised pool to small children during a hot Christmas,” she said.
When customers asked to see paperwork, the court found Stevens gave false assurances. “You exploited the kind of small city trust that binds a regional community,” the judge said.
The sentencing also turned on a long wait. Todd was troubled by an eight-year delay from when Stevens was first interviewed in 2018 to his sentence on Monday, describing it as imposed by “a series of … failings” rather than driven by him.
But she still stressed the need for deterrence. “There was need for general deterrence for those who wanted to exploit trusting people,” she said. She added that what he did “had a corrosive effect on the goodwill and trust that does so much good in a community.”
In court, the judge considered a character reference from former Carlton chief executive Michael Malouf, along with support from Stevens’s family. Stevens, who played 231 games in the AFL before retiring in 2009 because of injury, pleaded not guilty to the 13 charges and took the case to trial.
Three of his trials were discharged before a fourth jury reached its verdict in March. Stevens has indicated he will compensate some of his victims.
The judge also imposed a two-year community corrections order after the jail term. Under the order, Stevens must perform 120 hours of unpaid community work. He has spent 78 days in pre-sentence detention.
Nick Stevens AFL Carlton Port Adelaide swimming pool scam Mildura Council jail sentence community corrections financial advantage by deception false document