Corkman cowboys could be jailed for ‘blatant’ contempt

A “beautiful vista” built a year behind schedule wasn’t enough to save the developers who illegally demolished the Corkman Pub from jail.

The Corkman cowboys’ attempt to avoid jail because they created a “beautiful” park on the pub’s demolition site has been rejected as judges slammed their “blatant” contempt.

The pair — “dragged to compliance every step of the way” after being ordered to clear the Carlton site where they illegally destroyed the historic hotel — may now be sent to prison.

Developers Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski committed a “deliberate, wilful, flagrant and blatant” contempt when they breached tribunal orders in 2019 to clean up the demolition zone.

The men tried to appeal a one-month jail term and $400,000 penalty — $250,000 in costs for them and $150,000 in fines for business 160 Leicester Pty Ltd — arguing it was manifestly excessive.

The Corkman Hotel in Carlton, as it was in 2016. Picture: David Crosling

The site where the Corkman Irish Pub, previously known as the Carlton Inn, stood.

A “beautiful vista” with lawns and benches had been completed at a cost of $1.6m, they argued — despite it being done more than a year late.

But a panel of judges rejected their bid, upholding a tribunal member’s November 2020 sentence and finding it was “realistically the only orders that could be made”.

“The defence mounted by the Company and the Directors to the contempt charges revealed that their attitude to the enforcement orders was that they were free

to ignore the orders, if complying with them was not in their commercial interests,” the Court of Appeal ruling read.

Stefce Kutlesovski breached tribunal orders to clean up the site. Picture: Hamish Blair

The ‘beautiful vista’ built more than a year late on the site of the former Corkman Irish Pub.

The judges agreed with the original finding that Shaqiri’s “arrogance and lack of respect for the law” had a “negative impact on the administration of justice and diminish the standing of the tribunal in the eyes of the community”.

The judges found the cowboys could take their apology — offered up during appeal — to VCAT if they wanted to try there to have the punishment canned.

If that failed, they would be sent to jail.

However, an earlier Supreme Court hearing was told even if they went to prison, they wouldn’t serve their one-month sentence due to Covid-19.

Instead, they would spend two weeks in prison quarantine, then be released as part of a pandemic credit system for each day served in isolation.