Mr Adamson goes to Berrimah: a tale of abuse of position and false accounting

Mr Adamson goes to Berrimah: a tale of abuse of position and false accounting

This article considers the three offences of abuse of
position, false accounting and criminal deception within
the context of the Criminal Code 1983 (NT). The article
uses as a vehicle for this examination the high profile case
of Adamson v O'Brien [2008] NTSC 8 which was decided
in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory in 2008 and
involved the former Lord Mayor of Darwin. The common
link in this article between the three offences is the model
of a general fraud offence adopted in the Fraud Act 2006
(UK), but which was rejected by the Model Criminal Code
Officers Committee in 1995. A basic building block of the
general fraud offence is 'dishonesty', which in turn has its
antecedents in the Theft Act 1968(UK). Both the Northern
Territory and Victoria enacted variations on the Theft
Act model, where the dividing line between criminality
and innocence is 'dishonesty'. The Model Criminal Code
Officers Committee recommendations were a modernised
variation of the Theft Act model. This article recommends
the adoption of the definition of 'dishonesty'as found in s130.3 Criminal Code 1995 (Cth). The article concludes
that the present sections of the Criminal Code 1983(NT)
are not sufficiently robust or clear and proposes specific
statutory language for each offence based on the model of
the Fraud Act 2006(UK).

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