By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A DISGRACED former Education Department director has told an anti-corruption inquiry that he remains good friends with Chandler Park Primary School’s suspended principal Peter Paul.
Nino Napoli stood accused at the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) hearing of running a $2.5 million ‘banker school’ fraud ring that funnelled away Education Department funds – much of which went to his relative’s companies.
On the stand at the County Court of Victoria in William Street, Melbourne, Mr Napoli said he sent two backdated letters to Chandler Park Primary School to “protect the principal”.
One referred to a $90,000 student resource package component dated 2012 to employ a member staff.
He was asked why Mr Paul did not complain to superiors about receiving “obviously backdated” letters that “seem problematic in their content”.
“Well, I knew Peter pretty well,” Mr Napoli said.
As well as agreeing that Mr Paul was a very good friend, Mr Napoli said: “And still is. I have a lot of principals that are good friends of mine.”
“I don’t know whether he knew that (they were) suspect invoices but he knew that a whole stack of activity was being paid from his school.”
When questioned about Mr Paul and the school’s business manager Mary Hannett being “fairly well rewarded” with overseas trips paid by the Education Department, Mr Napoli said: “They did fairly well, I would say.”
Mr Napoli agreed that “a relatively intelligent experienced principal” would “join the dots together” that the backdated letters were an attempt to justify past acts.
In April, Mr Paul and Silverton Primary School principal Tony Bryant were suspended pending Education Department investigations following revelations in the IBAC inquiry.
Both schools were known as banker schools and were used to hold Education Department funds to distribute to neighbouring schools as needed.
Mr Paul had told the inquiry on 5 May that he had no knowledge of a “farrago of untruths” that involved using those funds to purchase wine, travel and other perks for department bureaucrats.
Between 2007 and 2014, the school was invoiced for more than $150,000 for purchases from companies linked to Mr Napoli.
In that period, the school had bought nearly $30,000 of Italian wine from Mr Paul’s wine-merchant son Matthew Paul, allegedly for the benefit of education bureaucrats.
Mr Paul said there was no accounting of the transactions done at the school but stressed that none of his school’s money was used.
The hearing continues.
