Ex-spy, Spousebusters founder Brett Sutcliffe’s shocking driving record exposed during sentencing for 204km/h Ferrari joy ride
He can fly a plane, spot a cheating partner at a hundred paces and build a property portfolio from scratch. But Brett Sutcliffe cannot drive to the speed limit.
Police & Courts
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He can fly a plane, spot a cheating partner at a hundred paces and build a property portfolio from scratch, but Brett Sutcliffe has largely failed to master one of life’s simplest skills – driving a car at the speed limit.
The former spy, who rose to fame as the founder of private investigation firm SpouseBusters before a spectacular fall from grace saw him convicted for impersonating a police officer, has been banned from getting behind the wheel of a car for two years after he was caught driving his unregistered Ferrari at more than 200km/h on the Hume Highway.
In sentencing Sutcliffe in Goulburn Local Court on Wednesday, Magistrate Geraldine Beattie said the 42-year-old’s driving record as “abysmal”, noting he had racked up 21 speeding matters since getting his licence in 1997.
The court heard Sutcliffe had owned the white 2019 Ferrari Portofino for less than a month when put the pedal to the metal during an early morning car club drive on June 3, in an act defence lawyer Martin Zanolla labelled a “significant, momentary lapse of judgment”.
Agreed police facts tendered to the court said a motorist had called police to complain about the group’s driving, prompting highway patrol officers to set up a radar at the south Goulburn exit.
Less than 10 minutes later, they clocked the Ferrari travelling at 204km/h in the signposted 110km/h zone.
Sutcliffe was pulled over and his licence immediately suspended. Police also confiscated the Ferrari, which was found to have a defective tyre.
Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to charges of driving at a dangerous speed and driving an unregistered vehicle on Wednesday.
Mr Zanolla told the court Sutcliffe had bought the prestige vehicle from a Queensland Ferrari dealer for about $500,000, but The Daily Telegraph can reveal Sutcliffe has no plans to keep the car for when his licence is reinstated, having listed it for sale through a luxury car dealership in Wollongong for $398,000.
However, any potential buyers will face at least a month-long wait to take it for a test drive, with the car not due to be released from the police impound until next month.
Separate court proceedings launched by Sutcliffe last month seeking the early return of the vehicle were unsuccessful.
In court on Wednesday, Mr Zanolla said Sutcliffe was a “true pillar of the community” who was expecting a child with his wife, was a qualified commercial pilot who volunteered his time with a cancer charity and needed his licence to commute from his home in Sydney to Wollongong, where he works as a property developer.
In an apology letter tendered to the court, Sutcliffe lamented the impact of his actions on his family, friends and work colleagues, saying he’d been “thoughtless, selfish and short sighted”.
“I … know that the result of my decision to drive at such a speed could have been far worse and this knowledge weights on me greatly,” he said.
“I have always been proud of being in a position to give back to the community at every opportunity, and I know that my actions on June 3 put the community at risk; for this I am deeply sorry”.
Magistrate Geraldine Beattie fined Sutcliffe $2,300 and placed him on a 22-month community correction order.
She also banned him from driving for two years – a reduction in the standard disqualification period of three years in light of his early guilty plea.
In his apology letter, Sutcliffe told the magistrate he was the only person in his family to have ever faced criminal charges, however, Wednesday’s proceedings did not mark the first time Sutcliffe had appeared in a courtroom.
Just two years after he founded SpouseBusters to spy on potential adulterers, Sutcliffe found himself hauled before a court on charges of impersonating an AFP officer and using the postal service in a menacing way.
He was ultimately convicted of intimidating a 77-year-old woman after she confronted him for parking in a disabled spot in North Bondi.
The court heard at the time that Sutcliffe had been on a stake-out and refused to move so that the elderly resident could unload her shopping.
He then sent her a threatening letter on fake AFP letterhead warning that she had “wrongly interfered” with a national security investigation and might be charged.
However, a few weeks later, the woman tweaked when she saw Sutcliffe on television spruiking SpouseBusters.
Authorities stripped Sutcliffe of his PI licence as a result of the charges.
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