Neville Martin Dunne sentenced to community service for contempt in $2.7m compensation case

Next time you drive past someone picking up rubbish on the roadside, it could be this bankrupt Brisbane businessman, who’s just been slapped with a community service order.

Dunne has been ordered to perform 100 hours community service.

Next time you drive past someone picking up rubbish on the roadside, it could be bankrupt Brisbane businessman Neville Martin Dunne – who’s just been slapped with a 100-hour community service order for fiddling with his shares while subject to an asset freeze.

Dunne’s name will be familiar for the wrong reasons for scores of his former investment customers, who lost $10m between them in a scheme which saw ASIC throw him in the corporate sin bin for five years from 2004.

The regulator found Dunne ran his options trading company Performance Plus Funds Management without a licence and without getting enough background from clients before recommending they invest in his ultimately doomed scheme.

That case wrapped in former Ord Minnett broker Giles Markey, who effected the transactions and was banned for two years. Neither Dunne nor Markey was charged with any criminal wrongdoing in relation to ASIC case.

Some victims of the 2004 scheme: Peter Clauss, Brian Wilson and Doug Derbyshire, John and Cheryl Burnett, Roger Le Marrec and Jill Derbyshire.

Dunne has just been sentenced on three charges of contempt – unrelated to his Performance Plus pickle – for moving shares between companies in 2023, shortly before declaring bankruptcy and while subject to freezing orders.

The legal saga which today sees Dunne ordered into unpaid servitude began in 2018 when he was sued by a company directed by Eleanore “Nora” Goodridge for misleading and deceptive conduct over payments for construction work that was never carried out.

Ms Goodridge is, incidentally, sister of veteran Sydney property developer and rich lister Robert Magid.

After more than five years in court, Dunne and one of his companies were ordered to pay compo of more than $2.5m. He lodged an appeal in May which is yet to be heard.

In the meantime, he has a year to perform his 100 hours of service.

Panel envy

Is it even a proper Friday if you’re not listening to a panel at a long business lunch?

This Friday, the Committee for Brisbane and Brisbane Economic Development Agency are hosting not one but three panels to mark the end of financial year.

Among the influential Brisbanites speaking will be Powderfinger bass player John ‘JC’ Collins, acclaimed author Nick Earls, BEDA CEO Anthony Ryan, media personality Sofie Formica, business supremo Steve Wilson and our own editor of The Courier-Mail Chris Jones.

Illustration of Jen Williams by Brett Lethbridge

According to Committee CEO Jen Williams (pictured) the lunch will offer a “fast-paced, fun format will take a not-too-serious look at how Brisbane sold itself to the world in the past, what we are doing today, and how we should be pitching a Brisbane of the future”.

With an audience also featuring some high profile names, there will no doubt be some interesting stories emerging from the day.

Fully charged

Staff at Battery World are used to helping people out when they’re flat, but they’re taking it up a notch this week, amping themselves up for a push-up challenge in the name of mental health awareness.

Rockhampton Battery World duo Tracy and Tony ‘Skip’ Wren and their counterparts in Enoggera and Caloundra are doing the annual ‘Push-Up Challenge’.

If you’re heading into any of these stores in the next few days, don’t be surprised if the team drops and gives 20 midway through their workday.

Originally published as Neville Martin Dunne sentenced to community service for contempt in $2.7m compensation case