The short answer is yes — and a Melbourne man found that out the hard way in April 2025.
Most people going through a separation already know that family court is stressful, adversarial, and expensive. What fewer people appreciate is that it is also a place where the criminal law applies with full force. Lie under oath, forge a document, or misrepresent your finances, and you are not just risking an unfavourable property settlement — you are risking a prison sentence.
A decision handed down on 3 April 2025 in the Victorian County Court makes that point with uncommon clarity.
What Happened in DPP v Sackl [2025] VCC 402
Andrew James Sackl, a Melbourne entrepreneur, initiated family court proceedings in September 2017 against his former de facto partner seeking property and parenting orders. The case turned largely on one question: what had happened to roughly $9 million he had received from the sale of his company, Young Media?
The answer he gave the court was not the truth.
Over two separate affidavits — one in August 2018 and one in April 2019 — and in oral testimony given on the same day as the second affidavit, Sackl made a series of false representations to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. He lied about when the sale proceeds had been received. He claimed a bank account held $4.2 million in August 2013, when the actual deposits had been made in August 2017 — a four-year difference. He falsely attributed the sourcing of the bank statement to his accountant, Mr Newlands.
Most damagingly, he had fabricated the bank statement itself — altering the date so that transactions from 2017 appeared to have occurred in 2013.
When the lie about the first affidavit was exposed — and it only came to light because the other party had to subpoena the bank directly — Sackl did not come clean. He doubled down. He filed a second affidavit containing fresh falsehoods, and he created fabricated email correspondence to corroborate his story. The real email chain with his accountant, investigators later found, had nothing to do with the family court matter at all.
In August 2020, the family court judge found that Sackl had deliberately falsified documents, given false evidence, and failed to make proper financial disclosure. The court was unable to determine the marital asset pool as a result. The matter was referred to the Australian Federal Police.
It took until August 2023 for Sackl to be charged, partly due to COVID-related delays in the AFP investigation. He pleaded guilty — to a charge of giving false testimony in a federal judicial proceeding under section 35 of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), a charge carrying a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. A second charge of fabricating evidence (under s 36(1)) was taken into account at sentencing.
What the Judge Said
Her Honour Judge Todd’s reasons for sentence are worth reading in full for anyone who thinks lying in family court is a low-risk strategy.
The Judge was direct about why this kind of offending is treated seriously:
“The administration of justice depends fundamentally on the parties to Court proceedings giving truthful evidence and introducing documentary evidence that is genuine. Providing false information in any form to a Court in a contested proceeding strikes at the heart of the administration of justice. It introduces chaos and uncertainty. It makes proceedings lengthier and more complex, and it threatens the legitimacy and authority of Court determinations. In short, it cannot be tolerated.”
The Judge found that Sackl’s moral culpability was high. His lies were not a momentary lapse. They were planned, repeated across multiple occasions separated by eight months, and compounded — each new falsehood created to cover the last. When the defence argued that the lies were so easily discovered they showed less sophisticated offending, the Judge rejected any reduction in culpability on that basis. The context — court proceedings he had himself commenced, under a specific legal obligation to tell the truth — made the lies no less serious for being clumsy.
The Sentence
Sackl was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, to be served by way of a recognisance release order. In practical terms: he was required to serve six months in custody before release, with the remaining 12 months suspended for three years on a condition of good behaviour and a $2,000 recognisance.
The Judge noted that had Sackl not pleaded guilty and been convicted after a trial, the sentence would have been a head term of three years and two months with a non-parole period of two years.
Factors that reduced the sentence from what it might otherwise have been included his early and genuine guilty plea (which the Judge described as “very significant”), lengthy delays in investigation partly attributable to COVID-19, and the impact of a custodial sentence on his four children. His prior history — he had also been separately sentenced in 2022 for providing false or misleading information under the Migration Act in an unrelated business context — weighed against him, though the Judge was careful not to treat it as formal prior offending.
What This Case Means in Practice
DPP v Sackl is a useful reminder of several things that litigants and their advisers should keep firmly in mind.
Family court proceedings are federal judicial proceedings. The Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) applies to evidence given in them. Giving false testimony in a federal judicial proceeding carries a maximum of five years’ imprisonment. Fabricating evidence to mislead a court carries the same maximum. These are not minor regulatory offences.
Financial disclosure obligations are real obligations, not suggestions. In property proceedings, both parties are required by the court’s rules to make full and frank disclosure of their financial circumstances. Failure to do so — let alone deliberate falsification — has consequences that extend well beyond the family court itself.
The lies will likely be found out. One of the more striking aspects of the Sackl case is that the falsification was, in the end, not sophisticated. A bank subpoena revealed everything. Courts and opposing lawyers have well-developed tools for testing financial evidence: subpoenas to banks, accountants, the ATO, and other institutions are routine. Documents that are fabricated rarely survive scrutiny.
“Doubling down” is far worse than coming clean. In Sackl’s case, the decision to respond to the discovery of the first falsehood with additional lies was what elevated the offending from serious to “persistent and serious” in the Judge’s assessment. A person who makes a false statement and then corrects it at the first reasonable opportunity faces a very different sentencing outcome than one who fabricates further evidence to shore up the original lie.
General deterrence is a strong sentencing consideration. The Judge explicitly noted that the sentence needed to send a message to others involved in or contemplating court proceedings. Family law litigation in particular involves large numbers of self-represented or emotionally overwhelmed litigants who may be tempted to shade the truth about assets. Courts are conscious of this and treat proven dishonesty seriously, both as a matter of principle and as a deterrent.
A Note on Terminology
The charge Sackl pleaded to was “giving false testimony in a federal judicial proceeding” under s 35 of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) — sometimes referred to colloquially as perjury, though that term strictly refers to a different (state-law) charge. The Judge acknowledged using perjury sentencing principles as a guide, given the absence of direct appellate authority on the federal charge. The distinction matters technically but changes little in terms of the practical message: lying under oath in court is a criminal offence that courts will punish with imprisonment.
The Bottom Line
If you are involved in family court proceedings — whether about property, parenting, or both — you are under a serious legal obligation to tell the truth and to disclose your financial position honestly. That obligation is not lifted because you are stressed, because the other party is behaving badly, or because you think the lies will not be found.
DPP v Sackl is a clear and recent illustration that Australian courts and prosecutors are prepared to pursue those who breach that obligation, and that the consequences include real time in prison.