Former AFL midfielder Nick Stevens loses appeal against fraud conviction

Former Carlton and Port Adelaide midfielder Nick Stevens has failed to have his fraud conviction overturned. Three Supreme Court of Victoria appeal judges unanimously dismissed his appeal, according to ABC News.

Stevens was jailed for nine months in June over a scheme that took money from six families in Mildura, a town in north-west Victoria. A jury found him guilty of 12 counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception and one count of using a false document. He was acquitted of one deception charge.

The offending centred on swimming pools. In 2017, Stevens took payments to install pools for customers. He did not have a builder's registration, the permits or the proper insurance needed to do the work. Victims lost $170,000 in total.

Not every job was a problem. Between January 27 and February 14, 2017, Stevens worked with registered builder Bricol Building Products and installed six pools lawfully. He also entered into six other pool agreements that did not involve Bricol. Those are the deals at the heart of the case.

The one charge he was acquitted on related to an initial deposit made by victim Julie Martin on January 15, 2017. Martin made her second and third deposits to Stevens on March 9 and March 15 that year.

His appeal argued the verdict was unreasonable, inconsistent and not supported by the evidence. The core of the argument was that he had been convicted and acquitted on identical charges. The judges rejected that case.

Under his sentence, Stevens will serve a two-year community corrections order once he is released from prison. A community corrections order is a sentence served in the community, under supervision, rather than behind bars.

Stevens spent his football career in the middle of the ground, where the ball is won and lost. This case was played out in a courtroom and in the backyards of six Mildura families, who are the ones who paid for pools that were never built.