A former real estate agent, notorious for swindling clients out of substantial sums and battling a cocaine addiction, found himself in court once more on Tuesday.
Timothy Peter Smith, aged 37 and hailing from Sydney’s northern beaches, confessed to violating his bail terms. This revelation emerged in the wake of a comprehensive NSW Police initiative designed to safeguard victims of domestic and family violence.
The operation, known as Amarok XIII, spanned from Wednesday, May 13, to Saturday, May 16. It successfully led to the arrest and charging of 993 individuals, alongside the execution of 299 arrest warrants.
Smith’s former partner disclosed that when police visited the address he had provided as part of his bail agreement, a resident informed them that Smith did not reside there.
Subsequently, authorities apprehended him at a Narrabeen restaurant, which is reportedly his place of employment.
Facing the Manly Local Court, Smith acknowledged the breach concerning his residential obligations. Nevertheless, he was permitted to continue on bail, albeit under more stringent conditions.
His not guilty pleas to various domestic-violence charges remain in place, and his next hearing is on September 28.
Smith, a father of two, is the subject of multiple apprehended violence orders with at least two women currently protected, with allegations including assault, intimidation and property damage.
Former real estate agent Timothy Peter Smith, 37, from Sydney’s northern beaches, was found to have breached his bail conditions after a statewide NSW Police blitz
Court records also show one former partner is protected by a final apprehended domestic violence order that remains in place until 2030.
An ex who spoke to the Mail on the condition of anonymity said that Smith ‘moves quickly in relationships. He pretends he has all these friends’.
They also claim Smith is now dating an American woman in her 20s living in Sydney.
Smith, a former real estate hotshot who moved into IT sales after his property career imploded, has already served a 15-month intensive corrections order for fraud offences, involving dishonestly obtaining financial advantage and using false documents.
Operation Amarok saw hundreds of officers deployed across New South Wales, including specialist Domestic Violence High Risk Offender Teams, alongside members of the Raptor Squad, Youth Command, Child Protection Register, Traffic and Highway Patrol Command and Transport Command.
The operation resulted in almost 1,000 people being charged with more than 2,000 offences, ranging from stalking and intimidation to assault and breaches of court orders.
Police carried out 1,847 bail compliance checks and 14,318 apprehended domestic violence order compliance checks, identifying 391 breaches.
Separate to the operation, local police also conduct random compliance checks on known offenders and welfare checks on victims.
Father-of-two Smith (pictured in 2019 when he was before the courts on a separate stealing matter) is the subject of multiple AVOs with at least two women currently protected
Smith first made headlines in 2019 after admitting to tricking four clients into depositing more than $31,000 into his personal bank accounts while working as a salesman at Novak Properties in Dee Why.
According to a police facts sheet tendered to court, Smith persuaded two clients to transfer more than $5,000 each for property advertising and marketing campaigns, falsely claiming the money was being paid into official Novak Properties accounts.
Instead, Smith, who had worked at the agency for just five months, had secretly set up a Westpac account and directed the payments there.
When one suspicious client queried why they had not received a receipt, Smith blamed the delay on a dislocated knee and the death of his grandmother.
Police launched an investigation after agency principal Mark Novak detected irregularities in the company’s trust fund accounts between May and July 2017.
Smith had already been sacked weeks earlier over performance and punctuality issues.
Investigators later uncovered he had also duped two other clients into transferring property deposits of $14,625 and $5,690 into his private accounts, before supplying forged Novak Properties receipts to cover his tracks.
He ultimately pleaded guilty to four counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and two counts of using false documents to obtain financial advantage.
Smith confessed: ‘I have a very bad addiction to cocaine. I had to quit my job.’
His solicitor, Ian Byrne, also told the court that his client’s ‘cocaine addiction got out of control’ at the time.
