Mining veteran Peter Bartlett accused of storing gold bars in Applecross home as part of alleged tax dodge

Mining veteran Peter Bartlett’s estranged former lieutenant has set the scene for a bruising sequel to failed criminal charges, claiming gold bullion was stored at Mr Bartlett’s Applecross home to dodge tax. Lawyers for Patrick Keogh, who was last year acquitted over his role in an alleged $2.4 million gold swindle, are planning to trawl through two decades of accounts from Mr Bartlett’s flagship FMR Investments as they fight a follow-up Supreme Court civil action. Mr Keogh’s barrister Nicholas Wallwork has added tax dodge and questionable accounting allegations to the former FMR operation manager’s claims last year that he once drove 120kg of impure gold bars from Mr Bartlett’s home to the company’s Greenfields mill, near Coolgardie. “Millions of dollars in gold bullion was not recorded in the books of FMR for 20 years,” Mr Wallwork told the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Mr Wallwork said FMR had responded to Mr Keogh’s tax dodge allegations by saying the bullion stored at Mr Bartlett’s home was recorded in the company’s accounts at zero value until it was sold to Perth Mint. “This turns on an analysis of the books and records,” he said. He made the claims while wrestling with FMR’s legal team over the schedule for document sharing and potentially narrowing down the disputed issues ahead of a flagged 10-day hearing late next year. FMR barrister Samantha Nadilo said Mr Keogh’s legal team had a “particular view about the Bartlett gold”. “It’s a side issue about how gold in Mr Bartlett’s possession were accounted for by FMR,” she said. She claims the core issue in the Supreme Court row would be hotly contested claims by Mr Keogh that Mr Bartlett gave him permission to use a clean-up pile of ore at FMR’s Greenfields mill. Mr Keogh claimed in his District Court trial in March last year that Mr Bartlett gave him the clean-up ore pile in late 2012 or early 2013, not long after the operations manager had allegedly driven gold bullion from Mr Bartlett’s home to Greenfields to help FMR in a financial crisis. Mr Keogh had the dirt pile processed six years ago in an arrangement with Greenfields mill manager Chris Burns and miners Simon Gash and Russell Holden, who combined their own gold ore with the disputed stockpile for processing. A District Court jury found Mr Keogh and Mr Burns not guilty of stealing and related charges. Mr Gash and Mr Holden were acquitted of money-laundering and fraud charges. FMR’s Supreme Court action claims Mr Keogh breached his fiduciary duty by entering the ore processing and profit-sharing deal in 2018. Mr Wallwork said the practice of storing gold at Mr Bartlett’s house was directly relevant to Mr Keogh being given permission to process the disputed ore. Despite the Supreme Court having made discovery orders eight months ago, the barrister said FMR had not given Mr Keogh’s team access to a “key set of documents”. He said the defence team needed to review FMR records before understanding the scope of issues in the case and whether expert witnesses would need to be called in relation to its accounting for gold bullion. With parties expected to share documents in coming weeks, Justice Alain Musikanth ordered they come back to court on January 29 to decide a hearing date and discuss whether more documents would be sought by Mr Keogh’s lawyers.