Former Leighton executive Peter Gregg avoids jail for falsifying records

Former Leighton executive Peter Gregg faces home detention rather than prison for falsifying records.

Peter Gregg arrives for sentencing in Sydney. Picture: AAP

Former Leighton Holdings executive Peter Gregg will not serve jail time but will be confined to home for a year for falsifying documents related to a 2011 deal for the Australian construction giant.

Judge Paul Lakatos in Sydney District Court ordered that Gregg be assessed for suitability to serve 12 months of home detention after he was found guilty of two charges relating to $15 million of payments.

Gregg, the former chief financial officer of Leighton at the time, had pleaded not guilty to falsifying company records but was convicted by a jury in December.

Each offence carried a maximum two-year jail sentence.

But Justice Lakatos said the offences were at the less serious end of the spectrum, that they had not resulted in material losses to Leighton or personal gain to Mr Gregg, and did not warrant a full-time custodial sentence.

He said Gregg - a former chief financial officer at Qantas and a chief executive of the ASX-listed Primary Health Care on either side of his stint at Leighton - was of good character and an accomplished person who was unlikely to reoffend.

The court heard that Gregg had suffered a significant loss of standing and reputation because of the charges and subsequent conviction, as well as financial difficulties from the cost of defending the charges and a divorce from his second wife of five years.

He had also been diagnosed with an “extremely severe” depressive condition and anxiety related to the proceedings.

The judge ordered that Gregg serve a one-year sentence for the first offence and a two-year sentence for the second offence, to be served concurrently, including 12 months of home detention.

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