Scott Burgess blackmailed ANZ bank over security breach at Corryong branch

But the plan of former real estate agent Scott Burgess, 42, failed and he appeared in the County Court this week to plead guilty to blackmail.

Crown prosecutor Deborah Mandie said Burgess was not happy with how the branch had left the state of the lawn, nor what he said were unsolicited alterations to the building.

Then he found the financial documents.

"When the ANZ left the building, it inadvertently left behind large bags containing confidential information of ANZ customers," Ms Mandie said.

"These documents had been intended to be shredded by contractors and ANZ staff, and were left inside the premises of the former branch."

Burgess took photographs of the boxes and emailed the former branch manager on February 25, 2019 with his demands.

"ANZ have left hundreds of cheque books, statements of wills from solicitors, how much many people have in their accounts. I'm very disappointed. I live in a small country town, I now know how much many have in their statement of position, who received what when people died," he said in the email.

He then threatened to expose the breach of client privacy to the media.

The email ended by saying: "If you would like them destroyed, then ANZ would need to pay $25,000. Kind regards, Scott Burgess".

MORE NEWS FROM COURT:

He called the branch manager later that morning to confirm she had received his email, saying "my main concern is the garden".

Ms Mandie said the manager was "alarmed" and told her superiors at ANZ, who reported the matter to police.

With police assistance, they hatched a plan starting with an email to Burgess offering to meet his demands and pay the $25,000.

He agreed to personally deliver the boxes to ANZ officials at their Wodonga branch on February 28, where the exchange of money would then take place.

"Please also note that I would prefer this to be a private and confidential exchange between myself and ANZ," Burgess said in his email.

But it was not private - the ANZ official recorded their whole conversation.

Burgess returned the boxes of private documents to the bank as agreed, saying he believed the payment of $25,000 was "fair".

The money was paid to him and he was given a receipt.

But as soon as Burgess walked out the door, the bank reversed the transaction and police arrested him nearby.

Ms Mandie said he told police "that he does not do nothing for nothing and that he expected to be paid for delivering the documents to ANZ".

"This was an opportunistic attempt to get quite a large sum of money from the bank," she said.

Despite his arrest, Burgess tried again to get money out of ANZ on March 1.

He claimed he found more documents that included "a cheque book and things like that" and said "if you want them back, you will have to pay a holding cost before I give them up - that's fair".

This time, the bank refused to pay.

Defence barrister David Cronin said Burgess arrived at the $25,000 blackmail figure when looking at the damage caused to the former Corryong bank building, but Ms Mandie said that could only be part of the explanation.

He said the bank's covert recording showed Burgess was "jovial" rather than "menacing" when conducting the exchange of documents and funds, and he never followed through on his threat to go to the media.

A conviction for the offence may prevent him working as a real estate agent in the future.

Mr Cronin said Burgess understood it was a serious offence, but usually had what he called "good, old-fashioned country values".

"He would view himself as someone who is hard-working, but has been trying to make something of himself in terms of investing and using his time wisely," he said.

The court heard the Corryong home of Burgess and his family was damaged in the summer bushfires.

"That has had a significant impact on him in terms of what he prioritises in life," Mr Cronin said.

"His instructions are that how he reacted to this, in terms of dealing with the bank, is not how he would see himself reacting now that he has had the impact of the bushfires and the impact of almost losing his family, his property, everything."

He asked Judge Gerard Mullaly to consider a fine as punishment for Burgess.

Ms Mandie said a jail term should at least form part of the sentence.

"There is a large amount of money that was demanded, it's not a trivial offence," she said.

Judge Mullally said it was "hard to fathom" that Burgess would threaten to embarrass the bank through his blackmail attempt and only think it was "rough and ready business dealings" instead of a crime.

"He's not that naive," he said.

"You would think it would be very rare for the bank to leave these sorts of documents in an empty building for the owner to find."

He will sentence Burgess later this month.