AMID the litany of construction industry disasters left in the wake of Daniel Roberts, there are scores of Hunter families, suppliers and tradespeople owed millions.
Roberts, born in the United Kingdom, presents himself publicly as a quantity surveyor, builder and property developer, with a keen interest in environmentally-friendly construction.
The smooth-talking deal maker has been linked to a host of residential and commercial construction firms in NSW that gave him contacts and credibility. His membership to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) gave him professional respectability.
But behind the scenes Roberts is a serial scammer with a trail of creditors, folded companies and ties to debt-collecting bikies.
The tangled web the 37-year-old has woven spans a host of court cases where the serial litigant has either fought to stave off creditors or attempted to use his legal knowledge to inflict financial pain and suffering on clients, tradies and subcontractors.
He has also pleaded not guilty to a criminal charge of stealing after police allegedly found two air conditioners from a home he was meant to be building inside a 20-unit Wallsend development he partially owns.
You don't have to look far to find scathing assessments of Roberts' dodgy business dealings. The liquidator of failed Hunter construction company DSD Builders alleges Roberts may have committed numerous civil offences, possibly run the company recklessly and was likely acting as a shadow director.
In a scathing statutory report to creditors liquidator Shumit Banerjee, of Westburn Advisory, found the building company was potentially trading while insolvent from August 2018 until it was placed in liquidation in February 2021. Mr Banerjee said four creditors were owed more than $4.6 million and there was no hope of a return.
Creditors include Goodwin Street Developments that won a damages claim against Roberts for more than $1 million after the Supreme Court found he was personally liable for defects, damage and theft at a Jesmond development site.
Roberts' ex-wife Angela Roberts, the sole director of DSD Builders, was called before a Supreme Court hearing in July last year to explain how the company collapsed. Ms Roberts, who divorced in October 2021, said she had no idea that more than $3 million flowed through the bank account of the company she was meant to be running.
She claimed she was instructed to do things by Roberts and his business partner, Shashanth Shankar Tellakula Gowrishankar. "Daniel repeatedly advised that nothing do to with the business was anything to do with me," she said. "It was his and Shashanth's business."
Ms Roberts, of Charlestown, said she was also unaware she was a director and shareholder of multiple other companies linked to the duo. When asked about the relationship between Roberts and Shankar, Ms Roberts said she couldn't differentiate between the pair. "It's my understanding that one did not make a decision without the other. It was constant consultation with each other."
Ruling on a dispute between Newcastle developer Greenwood Futures and DSD Builders in 2018, the Supreme Court's Justice Robert McDougall unloaded on Roberts and Shankar. "There is, in my view, very strong evidence that Mr Roberts and Mr Shankar have engaged in structuring their affairs in such a way so as to avoid, wherever possible, paying their liabilities," Justice McDougall said.
His scathing attack on the pair went further to accuse them of "misusing, if not abusing" the system that determines payment in the building industry, known as the Security of Payment Act.
"It is open to infer that they have engaged in the well-known but opprobrious practice of utilising phoenix companies: consigning insolvent companies to the fires of liquidation, and creating new companies to arise from the ashes and take their place," he said.
The Newcastle Herald has reported extensively on a Gillieston Heights couple's battle with BH Australia Constructions, fronted by Roberts and Shankar, that left their home unfinished and full of defects.
Phillip Kapeller and Rachael Cesnik won a court judgement that the company owes them $191,366 and legal fees, but they have not received a cent from the pair. The couple were left with an unfinished home full of defects and were left $400,000 out of pocket.
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