Arrested tradie Phillip Johnathan Harrison worth $596 million. A tradesman pulled over by police in a luxury sports car has more than $590 million in the bank but isn’t at liberty to say how he got it, a Brisbane court has heard.

The court heard the bricklayer and carpenter told officers he was worth $12 billion and later explained to his lawyer he’d been given the car by the government. Duty lawyer Nick Hanly said he had asked the 29-year-old the origin of his significant net wealth, which he’d apparently only come into in the past 12 months. “He said he wasn’t at liberty to say,” Mr Hanly told the court. “At this point, I was considering getting mental health to come in.” But Mr Hanly said Harrison then urged him to log on to his online banking account — which showed a cash balance of $596 million and a property portfolio of $1.56 billion.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, indeed.