SA professionals before the courts: Bevan Charles Wilson, George Awkar, Benjamin John Waters
See the list of career-driven SA professionals who ended up before court over the past year.
Police & Courts
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For some professionals it was drugs that sent their lives on a downward spiral that landed them before the courts, for some it was greed or acts of desperation as their businesses or lives fell on tough times.
Here are some of the career focused South Australians who have found themselves in trouble with the law and sentenced for their crimes over the past year.
Daniel Schatto
A police officer spent 20-years on the beat before becoming embroiled in his drug-addict ex-wife’s meth dealing.
He was a police officer in Renmark when he knowingly provided his former wife and mother of his four children, Natasha Marie Schatto, with money to travel to Adelaide to buy methamphetamine in April 2020.
Police stopped her car and found 3.38g of methamphetamine – worth up to $3300 – after she had already sold about half a gram before the discovery.
Natasha pleaded guilty to charge of trafficking in a controlled drug, while Daniel was found guilty of the same charge at trial last year.
He had claimed he paid the money to his ex-wife to appease her during their separation.
In sentencing, District Court Judge Joanne Tracey said Daniel’s conduct was “reprehensible” and “difficult to understand”.
She said that, as a police officer, Daniel would have been well aware of the harm methamphetamine addiction caused.
“Your profession no doubt gave you insight into drug offending and the drug trade and the damage it is causing to users and the community,” she said.
“As a police officer you were sworn to uphold the law and no doubt fully understood the nature and the consequences of your involvement.”
Daniel was jailed for three and a half years with a 22-month non-parole period, while Judge Tracey suspended the three year and five month jail term she imposed on Natasha.
Daniel appealed his sentence and was later released from custody to serve a suspended sentence.
Bevan Charles Wilson
A former teacher and university lecturer preyed upon an inner suburban high school student for more than a year in the 1990s.
At the time, Bevan Charles Wilson was a teacher – but did not teach the student he abused – and groomed the teen, letting them use his canteen card in exchange for completing tasks.
He also preyed on the student’s disadvantage and befriended the teen’s mother to gain further access to the student.
At trial, the court heard Wilson, also known as Bevin, had a “Bill Cosby” air to him – painting himself as a “number-one dad” figure around the school he taught.
The victim, who described Wilson as a “monster”, identified him by two distinct physical characteristics – a birthmark on his chest and his abnormally small penis.
Wilson was found guilty after a trial by judge alone of a charge of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child.
In sentencing, Judge Jane Schammer described Wilson’s offending as a gross breach of trust.
He went on to work as a uni lecturer and SANFL footy scout before his torrid abuse was uncovered when the teen, now an adult, reported the abuse to police.
Judge Schammer jailed Wilson for 12 years but set a non-parole period of six years due to Wilson’s ailing health, including his advancing Parkinson’s disease.
Benjamin Waters
Fallen political adviser Benjamin John Waters said his child abuse offending began amid the “stress” of the role – even viewing abuse material while at work.
The former senior adviser to Labor Member for Hurtle Vale and now-Human Services Minister Nat Cook also tried to further blame his crimes on a co-offender, a computer glitch and autism.
He was expelled from the Labor Party after his arrest by the South Australian Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team.
He pleaded guilty to accessing and transmitting child abuse material, and to possessing child exploitation material.
Waters said he was not aroused by the material, but Judge Ian Press rejected that claim during sentencing and said it was clear he had a sexual interest in children.
However, he said Waters’ fragile emotional state and the “harrowing” three-months he spent in prison after his arrest, warranted a merciful punishment.
He said the offending occurred during a period in which Waters was drinking to excess and dealing with the effects of two “mental health breakdowns” triggered by his work in politics.
Judge Press sentenced Waters to a 15-month and 15-day home detention sentence, with an eight-month non-parole period for his possession of child abuse material. He also imposed a two-year good-behaviour bond for the transmission offences.
Brad Redman
A restaurant and gift shop owner hit a new low when, as his business was failing, he tried to swindle $820,000 from the tax office in a scheme which included the use of fake cancer claims.
Seaford Rise man Brad Austin Redman, who ran The Artel in McLaren Vale, lodged multiple false tax statements with the Australian Taxation Office and collected almost $600,000 of the cash he tried to claim.
During the 14-month scheme in 2016 and 2017 he forged a medical certificate claiming his wife was undergoing cancer treatment and asked the tax office for compassion due to his wife’s fake condition.
He initially used the money he falsely claimed for business expenses like wages and suppliers but as the time passed, he used more of the money for personal expenses including interstate trips and a BMW.
In sentencing, District Court Judge Liesl Kudelka said Redman claimed the business had made $19 million between July 2015 and June 2017, as opposed to the $500,000 the business actually made.
“It is plain that as your fraud continued, you used taxpayer money to maintain a reasonable lifestyle as well as maintain your business,” she said.
Redman pleaded guilty to 20 charges of attempting to obtain and obtaining a financial advantage by deception for his offending. He also admitted a charge of using a forged document.
Judge Kudelka ordered Redman serve a jail term of five years and three months with a non-parole period of three years. She ordered he also pay the tax office back the full $600,000.
Allison Sadler
The daughter of teachers, Allison Sadler dreamt of becoming a librarian.
Her love of books led her to open a bookshop in Gawler, which was once heralded “the most beautiful book store in Australia”.
But after being injured in a cycling accident Sadler lodged a third-party claim for more than $600,000 against insurer Allianz Australia.
The claim was initially rejected and she was offered a counter claim of $41,000. Upon learning she may be eligible for more cash if she had paid anyone wages for working in her store, she provided two doctored time books to her lawyers.
The books purporting to show her then-partner worked about 1700 hours in her store – but at the same time he held a full-time job requiring interstate travel. Bank records shows he had made transactions elsewhere during the hours he was said to be working at Sadler’s book store.
In sentencing, District Court Judge Liesl Kudelka said the time books were “palpably false” and riddled with errors.
Sadler continued to deny the offending despite being found guilty at trial of a charge of dishonest dealing with documents. She was spared an immediate jail term and was placed on a two-year good-behaviour bond for her crimes.
Sadler is awaiting an outcome after lodging an appeal against her conviction.
Ty Martain
After slogging it out at work for 11 hours, carpenter Ty Martain stopped for a gym session, swim and a beer with a friend after work.
After a few more beers, he made a “spur of the moment” decision to drive from his friend’s house at Pages Flat back to Adelaide to see a girlfriend, instead of spending the night at his boss’s home next door as he usually would.
Just a few minutes into the journey in March 2019 he crossed into an oncoming car on Victor Harbor Rd, McLaren Vale, causing fatal injuries to Nadine Varga.
At trial, the jury heard Martain, who was 22 at the time of the crash, had subsequently learned he suffered from a sleeping disorder which left him “living in a state of chronic sleep deprivation”.
He was found guilty of an aggravated charge of causing death by dangerous driving, and experts calculated his blood alcohol level at the time of the crash would have been .128.
District Court Judge Emily Telfer sentenced Martain to five years in prison with a non-parole period of four years. He was also banned from driving for 10 years upon release from prison.
Martain has lodged an appeal which is expected to be heard in June.
George Awkar
Pizza boss George Awkar was once on top of the world – running a successful pizza bar – but a bad business deal, meth and the Operation Ironside sting led to his downfall.
Awkar, a prominent member of the Lebanese community, ran the popular Rundle St haunt San Giorgio before a failed investment led him to sell a portion of the pizza bar – which is under new ownership – and into drugs.
On June 7, 2021, he was among hundreds of people around the world and in Australia to be arrested on the Operation Ironside “resolution day” which targeted users of the encrypted AN0M application.
Police burst into his Semaphore Park home and found 85g of methamphetamine and $80,000 in a suitcase.
When they scoured through the thousands of messages linked to his AN0M enabled phone, they discovered Awkar – known as “Pizza” on the app – was the middle man in a large drug syndicate pushing large amounts of meth onto Adelaide’s streets.
The messages revealed he was receiving, storing and onselling kilograms of methamphetamine from his home.
He pleaded guilty to multiple charges of drug trafficking and money laundering, and was handed a jail of 16 years, 10 months and 19 days for the offending.
In sentencing, Judge Paul Cuthbertson said the prominent businessman had been given multiple chances by the courts for drug offending in previous years.
He declared Awkar a serious repeat offender and set a non-parole period of 12 years, one month and three weeks in prison. He will be eligible for parole in August 2033.
Awkar has lodged an appeal against his sentence which is expected to be heard in August this year.
Brenton Williams
A prison boss desperate to avoid bankruptcy after a failed pub purchase stole $112,000 in petty and confiscated prisoner cash.
Brenton John Williams has landed himself on the other side of the bars for the crime, which was detected after a national manager set a cash “trap” to uncover what happened to the missing money.
Williams was the general manager of the Adelaide Remand Centre in 2022 when he stole the money, which was held in trust for prisoners’ as they awaited the outcomes of court proceedings.
He gambled more than $1m in the six months before his arrest in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy, which he thought would cause him to lose his job with the prison.
In sentencing, Judge Joanne Deuter said Williams’s offending was uncovered when the national boss of Serco – the company that managed the remand centre – travelled to Adelaide in July last year due to concerns with the “irregularity” of banking prisoner’s cash.
When the boss discovered Williams had taken “exclusive control” for handling the prison cash, he placed a cash tin on Williams’ desk with two other cans.
Williams took the cash and failed to show up to work for the following two days and the matter was reported to police, who was found in a North Adelaide hotel room having drained his bank account.
Judge Deuter said Williams’ offending occurred as he battled a gambling addiction. She said he turned to gambling after a regional pub he bought failed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He pleaded guilty to one count of theft and was jailed for two years and 11-months with a non-parole period of one year and seven months.
Trevor Mueller
An Adelaide Hills man “selfishly” siphoned $750,000 worth of water for a vineyard he managed because he had an affinity with the land – his family’s former farming property.
Trevor Dean Mueller had claimed he stole the water to help it survive through three hot, dry, years.
At the time he was a vineyard manager for Serendipity Vineyards at Birdwood.
In sentencing, District Court Judge Michael Durrant found Mueller’s explanation fell short because he had been siphoning water from the Mannum to Adelaide pipeline for eight years.
However, he said Mueller could only be punished for the pipeline tampering which occurred between 2019 and 2020.
“(The offending) was committed against a background of similar conduct going back to 2012, and that suggests a much broader motivation that ‘misguided affection’ for the land,” he said.
“Your actions were selfish and caused harm to the community … water is a limited resource, and the community must be protected from this type of offending.”
Mueller had pleaded guilty to 22 charges – down from the more than 200 originally laid – of theft.
The court heard Mueller’s family had previously owned the land, but Mueller’s motivation for stealing the water enabled his continuing employment at the vineyard.
His offending was detected by a camera set up inside a meter box, capturing 19 instances of theft between December 2019 and February 2020.
Judge Durrant suspended a two-year jail term in favour of a two-year good behaviour bond.
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