It has been 15 years, but convicted fraudster Peter Burkett is still paying for his misdeeds.

And a decision by the District Court suggests he’ll keep paying the price for the rest of his working life.

Burkett was convicted of fraud and served five months in jail in 1998 after wrongly taking $42,000 out of a rental payments trust fund and other company accounts in his real estate business.

Burkett was immediately disqualified from holding a real estate agents licence.

In 2011 he started a bid for re-admission as a real estate agent by writing to then consumer affairs minister Gail Gago.

Gago wrote back to Burkett and said that she would be happy to consider his request for exemption if lodged in conjunction with an application for a land sales representative registration.

In her letter, the minister pointed out that it would be necessary for the District Court to vary or revoke the disqualification orders made in 1998 before any registration could be granted.

That brought him to the District Court’s Administrative and Disciplinary Division.

He told the court he had reformed, had spent years working in tough physical jobs and was slowly repaying the money he stole.

“Mr Burkett is now 62 years of age and says that he would like to leave the heavier unskilled work that he has been following and return to the real estate industry that he followed for about 18 years,” the court heard.

“He thinks that he could better utilise his skills and abilities in the real estate industry.

“He says that he wants to return to work in the real estate industry as a sales representative and would like to eventually be licenced as a real estate agent.

“He would also want to seek readmission to the real estate industry as an opportunity to redeem himself in errors that he has made in the past.”

In the period since his release from jail, Burkett had secured work with a range of small businesses in Murray Bridge as a labourer, dairy hand and gardener as well as doing volunteer work as a driver for Families SA.

He later secured a taxi driver’s licence and truck driver’s licence and succeeded in an application to be a collector for charitable services, working for Community Food SA.

He tabled a raft of character references from his various employers.

The Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, however, argued the 1998 disqualification orders should stand.

The court agreed.

It cited both the need for public confidence, and the seriousness of his offending.

“Our concern is to protect the public in and about the administration of the real estate industry by preventing a person from acting as a real estate sales representative if that person is not fit to be a member of that body of persons.

“We are of the view that real estate sales persons are held out to the public as persons upon whom the public may rely and in whose integrity they may trust so they may (place) trust in the process and thus also in that person.

“It is not a matter of punishment or reform or rehabilitation.”

Judge Slattery, heading up the division’s panel, said the offences remained far too serious to be forgotten.

“In our view, the matter for our consideration is the seriousness of the conduct which led to the orders made by this court in 1998.

“… the conduct was not that of a young and immature person nor was it an isolated act even though it may have been committed under the particular stress of Burkett’s own making.

“At the relevant time, Burkett was in his mid-40s and his conduct was in respect of clients who placed their trust in him.

“His conduct was flagrantly dishonest and it is to his credit that he confronted that flagrantly dishonest conduct by his plea of guilt.

“… the conduct demonstrates a flawed character … but was of such a serious nature that in and of itself, it would, in ordinary circumstances preclude readmission to the profession of real estate sales persons.”

And with that, Burkett’s two year battle to return to the real estate business was over.