BEAMING into NSW District Court on Friday for perhaps the dozenth time since this whole saga started, Victor Keith Dobing sought a light at the end of the tunnel, an end to what is becoming one of the state's most convoluted criminal matters.
It had been eight years since an investigation into him started and more than a dozen years since the former secretary manager of the Kurri Kurri Bowling Club is alleged to have started embezzling money from the popular Coalfields club.
Prosecutors and police say the total, allegedly misappropriated in dodgy cheques between 2012 and 2017, is around $1.8 million. Mr Dobing says it's closer to $500,000.
And after eight years of investigations, two trials, both aborted before they could start, a heap of finger-pointing and those dozen or so appearances on the audio visual link, the case appears no closer to resolution.
And Dobing, now "broke" and subsequently self-represented after he says he spent $85,000 on legal fees, has just about had enough.
"I've been waiting eight years," Mr Dobing said on Friday. "First of August, 2017, I confessed and I've been waiting eight years and paid $85,000 and I still haven't gotten [a trial date]. I've got no money left to defend myself. If you see how many times I've had to appear, you'll understand why I'm broke, Your Honour. And nothing has happened and no one can explain to me why it's taking this long.
"This has to end at some stage."
Mr Dobing, formerly of Stanford Merthyr, was arrested in 2019 and accused of manipulating accounting records, falsifying invoices and concealing the theft of cash in an alleged comprehensive fraud that threatened to sink the popular Coalfields club.
He pleaded not guilty in 2020 to six counts of embezzlement as a clerk relating to more than $1.8 million that was allegedly taken from the club between March, 2012, and July, 2017.
The matter was twice listed for trial, looked like resolving with guilty pleas more than once, but has since been in a state of judicial limbo.
The sticking point between Mr Dobing and prosecutors has been the amount of money he is alleged to have embezzled from the club, with the 56-year-old saying on Friday that he had indicated a number of times he would plead guilty to some of the charges but argue the quantum that was taken during a disputed facts hearing.
"The first time I pleaded not guilty, I mentioned that I was willing to plead guilty to about $500,000," Mr Dobing said on Friday. "I've never denied it... but I didn't do it all."
But the prosecution says the gap between the parties in terms of the total amount embezzled was "significant", with Mr Dobing confirming it was "well over a million dollars".
That required further investigation and the matter - even back then described as "complex" - was adjourned, and then adjourned and adjourned until Mr Dobing ran out of funds just as the matter was apparently slowly heading towards a resolution.
Once Mr Dobing was self-represented he asked for a hard copy of the brief.
The DPP was ordered to send it to him, but he became frustrated when he received only a portion of the alleged evidence against him.
"I know I am guilty of a certain part of it and a lot of that evidence clears me of the rest of it," Mr Dobing said of the volumes that were missing.
The case was adjourned again, until a judge took a look at it earlier this month and said it was time Mr Dobing was arraigned again and the matter either got another trial date or the DPP accepted a plea.
That was supposed to be Friday.
But instead of a resolution, the DPP said the matter was unable to be resolved and Mr Dobing would be facing a six-week trial.
Mr Dobing wanted to plead guilty to five of the six counts, but again dispute the total amount taken.
The DPP said that plea would not be accepted in full satisfaction of the indictment, meaning they were looking at a lengthy disputed facts hearing on the charges he admitted and then a lengthy trial on the other charge he denied.
The first charge of embezzlement, which Mr Dobing denies, relates to between $50,000 and $60,000, the court heard.
But Mr Dobing would not plead guilty to it, saying "I didn't take any of that".
"If you want me to plead guilty to it, I'll plead guilty, but I'll be fighting the whole amount," Mr Dobing said.
In the end, Friday's was a mention not unlike the dozen or so others.
And in three weeks, Mr Dobing will be beaming in again.
