Warwick Bryant, 45, pleads guilty to $220k rort on surveying company Fyfe Solutions

The former Darwin boss of a national surveying business rorted the company out of more than $220,000 over more than two years, a court has heard.

Fraudster Warwick Bryant, 45, has been jailed after pleading guilty to a $220k scam.

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THE former Darwin boss of a national surveying business rorted the company out of more than $220,000 over more than two years, a court has heard.

Warwick Bryant, 45, of Malak, become teary as he told the Supreme Court yesterday his $180,000 salary wasn’t enough to keep up with mortgage repayments, day-to-day expenses and private school fees for his three kids, aged six, nine and 11.

Bryant pleaded guilty to three counts of obtaining benefit by deception, committed while he was the Northern Territory manager of Fyfe Solutions, a national surveying company which had as many as 70 staff based in Darwin at the height of the Inpex boom.

The bulk of Bryant’s rort involved him deleting billing information from 134 projects, before billing the clients personally.

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Bryant said he was “absolutely” remorseful for his crimes, but the court heard he had repeatedly told former colleagues he had not done anything wrong and was only pleading guilty because he had run out of money to pay legal fees.

Fyfe Solutions managing director Mark Daymon said before Bryant’s offending was discovered senior management had concerns about his “integrity” including him filling out questionable time sheets.

He said Bryant was only good at parts of his job.

“He was good at getting business in the door, but not so good at keeping it,” he said.

Mr Daymon said Bryant once asked if he would mentor him, saying he wanted to one day become the company’s managing director, “which I found somewhat amusing”.

He said the company had a “much better business” in the Northern Territory since Bryant was sacked.

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Mr Daymon said Bryant took a job with a rival company with offices in the same building after he was sacked.

He said he would often get emails of phone calls from staff saying their former boss “was saying he was not guilty and he would have to plead guilty because he can’t afford to defend it and he can’t understand why Fyfe was pursuing it after all he had done”.

Crown Prosecutor David Morters SC said Bryant had not shown any remorse.

“It’s not a situation where the accused has done some cashies on the side,” he said.

“It wasn’t a mistake, it was a constant activity over a period of two years.”

One of Bryant’s supporters gasped as Justice Stephen Southwood remanded him in custody.

Bryant will be sentenced on Thursday.