Ex-Olympian Scott Miller granted parole

Former Olympic swimmer Scott Miller will be out of jail in time to watch the Paris Olympics with the Parole Board granting his release.

Olympic swimmer turned drug supplier Scott Miller will be released from prison after being granted parole on Friday.

Miller, who won a silver medal at the 1996 Olympics, will be released on strict conditional and supervised parole no later than June 21 after the State’s Parole Authority’s ruling.

The 49-year-old had been serving a sentence of five years and six months after he pleaded guilty to playing a central role in a criminal syndicate that smuggled the drug ice secreted in candles that was transported in a secret compartment in a Toyota Camry.

Police were already onto the scheme and installed hidden cameras in a series of cars that captured Miller’s crew transporting the drugs from Balmain to Yass in 2020.

A search warrant of Miller’s home in Rozelle in February 2021 then uncovered commercial quantities of heroin in a bag in his wardrobe, several mobile phones and about $72,000 cash hidden inside a locked safe.

Former Olympian Scott Miller. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins

In the late 1990s Miller was one of Sydney’s most famous and in demand identities thanks to his sporting success, good looks and marriage to late media identity Charlotte Dawson.

The failure of the relationship and Miller’s demons from coming second in the 1996 Olympics saw him spiral into drug abuse to the point where he has been jailed multiple times.

On Friday, a SPA meeting to decide Miller’s fate was told by Community Corrections that Miller had been assessed as “low (to) medium risk of reoffending” and recommended his release.

“Mr Miller has a long history of substance abuse and appears to display some insight

into this problematic behaviour,” Community Corrections reported.

Miller was one of Sydney’s most famous and in demand identities thanks to his sporting success, good looks and marriage to late media identity Charlotte Dawson.

Miller’s non-parole period for the sentence expired on February 15.

Any chance he had of being released were delayed because he was facing further charges relating to an ice supply ring that was run out of a Haberfield property, also in 2020.

In that case, Miller and the other two people -- who pleaded guilty and have been sentenced -- sealed portions of the drugs in “noodle cups” and “dried noodle packages”, the court heard.

Police also installed hidden cameras at the Ramsay St property, which captured 1kg blocks of drugs being dead-dropped at the property before being repackaged.

Miller pleaded guilty and District Court Judge Andrew Scotting sentenced the ex Olympian last month but ordered he serve no more time in jail.

Disgraced ex Australian swim star Scott Miller’s mug shot.

The swimmer’s lawyer, Greg Goold, said Miller will reunite with his family and continue his studies for a degree in building and construction, which he began in prison, while also looking for a job.

“Given that Judge Scotting regarded him as a model prisoner who utilised his time in custody to realise his mistakes and advance his opportunities upon release it’s appropriate that he has received his parole and I am hopeful that he will move forward as a contributing member of the community,” Mr Goold said.

“I think his prospects are good if he can stay away from drugs which was his fallback when things became overwhelming in his life,” Mr Goold said.

The court heard Miller had been abstinent from drugs while in jail.

But Judge Scotting also accepted that Miller’s post Olympic mental troubles -- which included depression and anxiety -- had contributed to his offending and that he would likely not reoffend.

The court heard a psychiatrist diagnosed the ex Olympian with a depressive illness that is common to elite athletes when their sporting careers end.

Police arrest Miller in 2021. Picture: NSW Police Force via NCA NewsWire

Miller’s affidavit also said his mental state was on a downward trajectory even as his career was taking off.

He felt “separation from family and friends difficult” while living as a young man at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra while “pursuing glory for his country came at an expense of everything else in his life”, the court heard.

This was compounded by the fact that Miller finished second to Russian Denis Pankratov in controversial circumstances in the 100m butterfly final at the 1996 Olympics.

“He felt shattered to the extent that his life was ruined,” Mr Goold said.

The common threat was that when stress emerged in Miller’s life, which included when his various business ventures failed, he turned to drugs, Mr Goold told the court.

In the time since, Miller has served multiple stints in jail for drug offences and became involved in the sex industry to the extent that he set up an escort referral agency from an office in the Sydney CBD.