ACT Magistrates Court gives Brock Browne final chance to repay tool fraud victim

Years after he tricked a business out of expensive tools, a fraudster is yet to comply with orders to make amends.

Brock Browne leaves court on Thursday. Picture: Blake Foden

A magistrate has given a fraudster one last chance to pay back the business he left nearly $2500 out of pocket, notwithstanding the tool trickster’s repeated failures to come up with most of the money.

“I don’t know why I hold out hope, but I hold out hope that this will be resolved satisfactorily,” magistrate Ian Temby said on Thursday as he re-sentenced fraudster Brock James Browne.

Browne, 37, faced the ACT Magistrates Court over two breaches of a good behaviour order imposed on him in 2020, when he was convicted of obtaining property by deception.

The offence involved the Queanbeyan man attending a business in the ACT industrial suburb of Fyshwick, where he bought tools using the account of an electrical contracting firm.

He did so without authorisation on two occasions in August 2018, leaving with an angle grinder, a circular saw and seven other tools that had a combined value of about $2492.

The ACT Magistrates Court, where Brock Browne appeared on Thursday.

The electrical contracting firm subsequently received an invoice, prompting one of its staff members to attend the Fyshwick business and watch CCTV footage.

She immediately recognised Browne, who had done a few months of work for the contracting firm the previous year.

Neither the firm nor its staff are accused of any wrongdoing.

The court heard Browne attempted to fraudulently obtain another tool worth $1499 before he was eventually charged, but he was unsuccessful because his previous visits to the Fyshwick business had resulted in the electrical contracting firm’s account being frozen.

Police never found the fraudulently obtained tools.

As a result, a condition of the good behaviour order imposed on Browne in 2020 was that he pay $2492 in reparations to compensate the victim of the fraud.

On Thursday, more than three years later, the court heard $1492 of that amount remained outstanding.

Mr Temby said Browne’s failure to pay the full amount constituted a breach of the good behaviour order, as did a May 2023 incident in which the 37-year-old was busted drink-driving.

As a result, the magistrate was required to re-sentence Browne in relation to the fraud.

Legal Aid lawyer Ellie Wallis asked Mr Temby to allow Browne more time to pay the outstanding amount, saying the fraudster wanted to comply with the reparation order.

Ms Wallis said the offender had been experiencing financial difficulties after paying his former private solicitor about $15,000 in legal fees.

She added that Browne’s monetary misery had been compounded by his drink-driving conviction, which had resulted in him losing his driver’s licence and his job in December 2023.

Ms Wallis told the court Browne had since resumed work in refrigeration mechanics, and he was confident in his capacity to pay off the remaining amount.

Prosecutor Colin Balog agreed with Ms Wallis’ submission that the victim would be best served by Browne being allowed more time to pay back the defrauded sum, with a jail term likely to end any hope of the victim seeing the outstanding amount.

Mr Temby ultimately re-sentenced Browne to a new 12-month good behaviour order, which requires him to pay the outstanding amount of reparations within six months.

The magistrate said while it was “difficult to know what to do” with such a long-running matter, the community would be best served by Browne being able to “get on with his life and improve his financial position”.

Mr Temby believed this would help “minimise [Browne’s] desire to take other people’s things”.