Matthew Hanks in court over Surf Life Saving fraud charges

Disgraced former Surf Life Saving NSW boss Matthew Hanks told the District Court on Tuesday that he had “no idea” how serious fraud charges against him were.

Disgraced former Surf Life Saving NSW boss Matthew Hanks was “in shock” when he was confronted over defrauding the organisation of almost $2 million and told he was going to jail, he told the District Court on Tuesday.

“I had no idea how serious it was,” Hanks, 52, who has pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud totalling $1,839,845 over eight years, said.

He said that after he was spoken to by other executives in July 2016, he asked one of them how he could “fix it” and was told to “get a lawyer because I was going to jail”.

While he has pleaded guilty, there is a dispute over the facts of the case.

Former head of Surf Life Saving NSW, Matthew Hanks has admitted to defrauding the organisation of close to $2 million.

He says he had no idea how serious the charges were.

One of the offences involved a $121,000 government grant meant for Port Macquarie SLS Club which Hanks pleaded guilty to paying into his own bank account using a false invoice.

He told the court that he had just put the money into his account to get if off the SLS books as an unused grant where it “looked bad” and had meant to pay it to the Port Macquarie club. Then he started to panic.

“I didn’t have any idea about how I was going to get the money back,” he said in evidence but denied he was hiding it from SLS.

Then there was the $400,000 he has admitted to defrauding the charity and its 75,000 volunteers of by invoicing the printing work to his own company See, Hear, Speak.

The court has heard evidence that he had denied involvement with the company.

Hanks told the court that he had been taking a fee for brokering the printing work.

He denied a suggestion from Crown prosecutor Jot Mehta that See, Hear, Speak was just a “scam” which had no employees and no premises.

Hanks also denied that asked why he had defrauded the charity for eight years, he had told one of his co-workers: “Opportunity”.

He admitted making over $1.3 million selling SLS cars privately to friends and family including his father, mother, ex-wife and brother-in-law but denied it was a “complex” scam that had gone on for eight years.

The hearing before Judge John Pickering has been adjourned to October 13. Hanks remains on bail.