Benjamin Andrew Colvin sold boats with fake documents and no owner’s permission

A Gold Coast man hired to store a luxury fishing boat instead sold the vessel and all of the equipment. Twice.

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A GOLD Coast man hired to store a luxury fishing boat instead sold the vessel and all of the equipment.

Twice.

Benjamin Andrew Colvin also sold two other boats and then refused to give the proceeds to the owners.

He made more than $169,000 out of the scam.

Colvin pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court on Friday to three counts of fraud, a count of forgery and two counts of forgery and uttering.

Judge Rowan Jackson sentenced Colvin to three-and-a-half years’ prison to be suspended after he served a year.

“Fraud cases are quite difficult to detect but these were always going to be detected,” he said.

“What they did was cause a loss to each of these complainants and your behaviour was made worse in a way because you lied to those complainants by telling them the boat was not sold or the money was on its way.”

Outside of court, one of the victims who declined to be named said: “I think it is disgusting.”

He said he had worked hard to buy the boat and trusted Colvin to store the boat as agreed.

Colvin had agreed to store the man’s 7.5m fishing boat and about $5000 in equipment in June 2018.

In August 2018 Colvin sold the boat for $28,000.

He then told the new owner he had a buyer who could purchase the boat for about $50,000 and sold the boat again.

But Colvin never handed over the money from the second sale.

In January 2019 another man purchased a boat from Colvin for $118,000.

Later that year he took it back for a service and agreed for Colvin to sell it for $65,000.

The boat’s owner never received the cash.

Colvin had also forged documents from the owners of the boat about the sale.

The court was told Colvin had been under stress at the time working long hours and was in a bad financial situation.

Colvin had recently been diagnosed as obese and had also stopped smoking.

He also suffers from a number of injuries.

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