Former Australian businessman admits faking death

A former Sydney businessman, officially listed as drowned during a drunken boating mishap five years ago, today admitted he had faked his own death to cash in on a life insurance policy worth 3.5 million Australian dollars (€2.2m).

Harry Bentley Gordon, 56, who owned a Sydney engineeringfirm, appeared today in Raymond Terrace Local Court, 125 miles north of Sydney, near where his motor boat was found in June 2000 with a smashed windscreen and two empty champagne bottles on the deck.

He pleaded guilty to charges including conspiring with his first wife, Sheila Gordon, and daughter Josaphine (correct) Gordon to obtain money by deception, and false representation resulting in a police investigation.

He also pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing false Australian travel documents, and one charge of possessing a falsified Australian passport.

Gordon was arrested last week at Sydney international airport after arriving on a flight from his native New Zealand, where he has been living.

Police say his first wife revealed Gordon’s scheme earlier this year, after five years of questioning by his life insurance company, which had refused to pay the claim.

He remarried under the assumed name Robert Motzel in September.

At an inquest in April 2001, Deputy State Coroner John Abernethy discounted theories Gordon was still alive and ruled he drowned after being thrown from his 16-foot boat when it struck a navigational marker.

Prosecutor Sgt. Louise Foster told magistrate Colin Elliott she would recommend the case go to a higher court for sentencing.

Higher courts can impose heavier sentences than magistrates. The maximum sentence that Gordon could face was not immediately clear.

Gordon did not apply for bail, and Elliott ordered him jailed until his next court date on December 22.

Outside the court, Chief Inspector Wayne Humphrey, who heads the police task force that investigated Gordon’s disappearance in co-operation with New Zealand and British police, said other people would likely be charged.

“I would say (others being charged is) very, very likely,” he said.

Humphrey would not elaborate on who else was being investigated, other than to say inquiries in New Zealand were also continuing.

Gordon’s new bride, British-born Aucklander Kristine Newsome, a 57-year-old social worker, said “of course” when asked if she still loved her husband.

She would not say if she knew of his double life.