Keith grain seller Tim Cadzow to appeal his four year prison sentence to the Supreme Court of Criminal Appeal

A Keith seed exporter prosecuted for using fake labels on seed shipments to Saudi Arabia is appealing his four year prison sentence, in a move likely to set a national standard for the offence. Tim Cadzow, 52, was one of only two people to be prosecuted for breaching sections of the Export Control Act which control trade descriptions on products leaving Australia in the last decade. Despite only making a maximum $100,000 profit over several years, Cadzow, a prominent member of the Keith community, was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison earlier this month. The challenge to the severity of that sentence will set a benchmark for how similar offences against the Export Control Act are punished, not only in South Australia but across the country. Between July 2012 and January 2014 Cadzow worked on behalf of various seed growers in the Keith area to export 16 separate consignments of lucerne seed, one of the South East’s primary products. He had previously run Keith Seeds, a company which went into receivership in 2010. In sentencing Cadzow, District Court Judge Michael Durrant said the experienced businessmen held himself responsible for the failure of Keith Seeds and had been motivated by looking after his clients interests when he illegally exported the seed. Cadzow used an unregistered company in the Adelaide Hills to process the 600 tonnes of seed, worth an estimated value of $5.7m. However, the main offending was the use of false trade declarations in the export of the seeds. Under the strict guidelines, each 25kg bag of seed needed a trade label which specified type of seed, strain and seed line. The labels are controlled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development which regulates the quality of goods passing between 37 member countries. Cadzow acquired thousands of blank labels from the same distributor which made the certified OECD labels. He printed his own seed numbers and created a logo similar to that of the OECD labels. He admitted during an interview with inspectors from the Agriculture Department that he had deliberately made the labels to look like the certified stickers. The labels certified that the bags contained a particular type of seed, which later proved false. The offending came to light when a photo of the bags of seed in a marketplace in Saudi Arabia was sent to the Agriculture Department. Judge Durrant said during sentencing that there was little in the way of established case law to guide the sentencing. He said he weighed up Cadzow’s lack of any criminal history, his lack of offending for more than five years, the support of his family and his prominent role in the community, with his crimes which risked the “national interest”. “You risked the integrity of the Australian export market for lucerne,” Judge Durrant said. “Specifically, the damage to the reputation of the region around Keith which produces a significant amount of lucerne for export could have been significant. “You risked the nation’s reputation and the efforts of the government and all those engaged in exporting to ensure reliable labelling and content.” Permission to appeal the sentence will be heard in July.