Former V/Line chief executive James Pinder has been jailed after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office involving $330,000 in secret commissions linked to multimillion-dollar rail cleaning contracts.
He was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria to two years and eight months in prison, with a non-parole period of one year and nine months.
The court heard that Pinder, 58, failed to disclose his relationship with Transclean director George Haritos and used his position to favour the cleaning company.
According to ABC News, the contracts and subsequent variations were initially worth about $40 million, rising to more than $54 million by the end of March 2019.
Pinder and the V/Line board awarded contracts to Transclean in May 2018, with the board also delegating authority to Pinder to extend the company’s contract by up to four years, involving expenditure of more than $20 million.
The delegation placed the contract well beyond Pinder’s ordinary $5 million spending authority as chief executive.
During the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) public hearings in 2020, Pinder disputed suggestions that anything improper occurred when the board granted him that authority.
He subsequently confessed to receiving $330,000 connected to Haritos and Transclean.
This included $320,000 used to help purchase a home in Williamstown after his application for a bank loan was refused, as well as a further $10,000 in cash.
“Mr Pinder, you spent your working life rising to a position of public trust… and risked it all for personal gain for you and your family,” said Judge Fiona Todd.
Pinder reportedly acknowledged in a letter to the court that the circumstances were of his own making and apologised to those affected, including the wider community.
The former chief executive, born in West London and a permanent Australian resident, also faces possible deportation after serving his sentence.
“As of today, you are uncertain as to whether you will be at liberty in the Australian community again,” said Judge Todd.
Haritos, 71, was sentenced to two years and three months in prison, with a non-parole period of one year and five months.
He had pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to give a secret commission and two charges of giving a secret commission.
Judge Todd described Haritos as the “common denominator” in almost every event examined by the court.
She said the conduct was “corrosive of public trust” and that giving secret commissions had a “metastatic quality”, which could lead honest contractors to believe they must engage in similar behaviour to secure work.
The sentences followed the IBAC’s Operation Esperance, which investigated allegations of serious corrupt conduct in the tendering, procurement and management of major contracts within V/Line and Metro Trains.
IBAC used telephone intercepts, video surveillance and hidden cameras to examine relationships and financial dealings involving senior transport officials and Transclean.
During the 2020 public hearings, the commission heard that Pinder, Haritos and then-Metro Trains manager Peter Bollas used prepaid mobile phones registered in the names of Transclean associates to communicate privately.
Recorded conversations played during the hearings captured Pinder and Bollas discussing payments after Transclean secured substantial additional cleaning work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, Pinder denied receiving corrupt payments and described some of the money as proceeds from a private gambling arrangement.
V/Line dismissed him after he appeared before the public hearings, and he later pleaded guilty to one charge of misconduct in public office.
Three other people connected with Transclean received non-custodial sentences at the same hearing, while solicitor Steven Collin, who had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to destroy a document, received a one-year community correction order.
In 2024, Bollas was sentenced to a three-and-a-half-year community correction order, including 300 hours of unpaid work, after pleading guilty to receiving $30,000 in secret commissions from Haritos.
The sentences represent the latest stage of proceedings arising from Operation Esperance, which placed executive conflicts of interest, supplier relationships, contract variations and oversight of high-value public procurement under scrutiny.
