A three-time bankrupt bookkeeper claims he was instructed by a government department to hide legal fee payments for former Aboriginal leader Geoff Clark.
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Allan Thomas resumed giving evidence at a Warrnambool Magistrates Court committal hearing on Thursday into a $2.48 million fraud case involving Mr Clark.
Former Framlingham Aboriginal Trust administrator Geoff Clark, his wife Trudi and two of their sons, Jeremy and Aaron, have been charged by police with a total of 1171 offences.
Geoff Clark and his family members have always maintained their innocence.
On Thursday magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg granted an indemnity certificate to Mr Thomas so any evidence he gave could not be used to prosecute him.
Mr Thomas said before Geoff Clark returned to Framlingham after being the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairman that the financial records at the trust were "straight forward and above board".
He said that when legal fees initially went through the financial records they were clearly marked as Geoff Clark's legal fees.
The bookkeeper said he was contacted by a government body, "probably" the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs rather than Aboriginal Affairs Victoria, after quarterly reports were submitted.
He said he was told payments for Geoff Clark's legal fees should not be recorded as such.
"I was told there was no allocation for legal fees," he said.
Mr Thomas agreed that he made a statement to police saying he allocated the legal fees under different headings depending on what type of funding the trust had received.
He also agreed that on the advice from the government department that legal fee payments were disguised to get past government bean-counters.
The bookkeeper said he kept the payments as obscure as possible.
In re-examination by prosecutor Justin Lewis, Mr Thomas said he took it upon himself to re-label those legal fee payments.
He said initially the payments were for small amounts and he altered them so they did not impact on the budget.
Mr Thomas said that later when larger legal fee payments were made, he received instructions individually from Geoff Clark, Trudi Clark and Jeremy Clark to not show them as legal fees.
Asked by the magistrate how he inputted those payments, Mr Thomas answered: "As obscure as I possibly could".
The prosecution alleges that Geoff Clark accumulated legal bills of $900,000 in a series of legal actions and it's claimed $549,744 was paid to lawyers by the trust and associated entities.
Mr Thomas had previously refused to answer questions in the committal hearing on the grounds he could incriminate himself, which led to Thursday's indemnity.
In cross-examination by barrister James Anderson, questions were asked about payments of $4729 into Mr Thomas' bank account.
Mr Thomas said he paid a man named Brendan Virtue in cash "out of his own pocket" for work done at Framlingham and at the Boona dairy farm and then reimbursed himself from trust funds.
The bookkeeper said Mr Virtue didn't want the money to be seen in his bank account because he was on a pension.
The barrister said Mr Virtue had denied the claim to police, but Mr Thomas said he was under oath (and had been granted indemnity) and that he did pay Mr Virtue cash.
Mr Thomas said he also made payments to his own business G. A. Contracting of $36,631 for farm contracting works and those works were authorised by Geoff Clark.
He agreed the electronic transfers were not signed, authorised or independently approved.
The bookkeeper said he also made 36 payments to G. A. Contracting of $54,000 for equipment hire.
He said he also split his wages to show that G. A. Contracting was receiving income so he could apply for a bank loan. Mr Thomas said there was also a payment on August 3, 2009, of $21,000 for cattle sales, which was for 21 friesian heifer sales to the Boona dairy.
Mr Thomas said once again that payment was not authorised by the trust committee of management.
He claimed the only thing he did wrong was take out a $10,000 loan from the trust.
Mr Thomas said all the transactions were investigated by police and he was only prosecuted in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on July 24, 2018, over the $10,000 loan.
He was fined after it was noted by the magistrate that he was cooperating with a police investigation into the Clarks.
Mr Thomas also agreed that he had been bankrupt three times - in 1994, 1998 and 2012.
He also agreed that he had between 18 and 20 helicopter flying lessons at $700 each but that was in about 2007 or 2008, well before he was bankrupt for a third time.
Mr Thomas said he was sacked as the Boona dairy farm manager at Yambuk in 2010 but he never knew why.
He said an independent audit investigation that revealed payments he made to himself had not been completed at that time.
Mr Thomas informed police that Trudi Clark stopped working for the trust in 2003 but he was told that she was entitled to draw a salary even though she may not working in the office.
He agreed that during Geoff Clark's bankruptcy he reduced payments to him and increased payments to Trudi Clark, almost like income splitting.
Long-time trust committee member Aunty Violet Clark claimed Geoff Clark made all the decisions about trust finances while elders were not involved.
"It never happened, I'm sorry," she said.
Asked if she should have paid more attention to the trust's financial arrangements, Ms Clark said "it's a bit late for that".
The committal hearing will continue in June.
