A Sydney entrepreneur who concocted an elaborate plan to flee Australia, become a drug-dealer in South-East Asia, hijack a yacht and fund an armed militia, has pleaded guilty to a string of fraud and drug charges in Darwin Local Court on Friday.

Andrew Spira, the millionaire nephew of ABC chair Ita Buttrose, was handed a $39,000 fine and an 18-month good-behaviour bond.

Spira was arrested in Darwin in May this year, where he planned on escaping the country using a fraudulent passport, despite then having permission to leave the country under bail conditions set in NSW for a domestic violence charge.

“[Mr Spira was] probably one of the first people to use a fake passport to get out of Australia, whilst holding their real passport with no restraints on that passport,” his lawyer Nicholas Goodfellow told the court.

After being taken by NSW police to a hospital while suffering acute drug-related mania and psychosis, Spira was then released before flying to Queensland where his fake passport was confiscated, Mr Goodfellow said in court.

Still in possession of his real passport, Spira then flew to Darwin where he devised his “exit strategy”, having disposed of “enormous amounts of wealth” in the process, Mr Goodfellow said.

In a document written on his laptop and seized by police in Darwin, Spira detailed plans to travel to countries including Vanuatu and East Timor, where he would “get a drug business up and running”, “try and hijack a yacht” and “get an armed militia”.

Mr Goodfellow told the court the plans reflected a path of “utter self-destruction” embarked upon by Spira, originating in the collapse of a relationship in Sydney and trauma suffered as a child.

In arguing for Spira to return to Sydney and engage with very lengthy and complex family law proceedings, Mr Goodfellow said Spira was able to pay a significant financial penalty.

While agreeing that Spira was suffering from mental health issues in the course of his offending, prosecution lawyers contested a legal precedent, Bugmy v the Queen, used by Spira’s legal team to claim a history of childhood trauma.

“Normally when [an] argument like this is made, we see child safety reports, Territory Family reports, and reports substantiating a history of abuse and neglect. We don’t have any of that type of documentation at this stage to substantiate what’s been said,” prosecution lawyer Nicola Wright said.

According to the Australian Law Reform commission, Bugmy v the Queen was a landmark High Court decision where “personal disadvantage, violence, substance abuse, suicide attempts, mental illness and repeated incarceration as a juvenile and as an adult”, were used to successfully appeal the severity of Aboriginal man William Bugmy’s 2013 prison sentence for assault.

Spira’s submission, that his exposure to drug use and parental neglect at a young age should be considered as a mitigating factor in the same way the High Court viewed William Bugmy’s traumatic childhood, was not a valid argument, according to Ms Wright.

“[Bugmy] grew up in a home with substance abuse, but he also witnessed his father stabbing his mother multiple times, was regularly detained in juvenile detention through his youth, and had a history of head injuries and hallucinations,” she said.

“The same cannot be said for Mr Spira.”

Judge Alan Woodcock said, although the two cases weren’t the same, there were compelling mitigating factors in Spira’s offending.

“Given what he experienced in his childhood, perhaps it’s not Bugmy, but no matter how much privilege or money you have, if you’re neglected as a child … that’s the opposite of privilege,” Judge Woodcock said.

The court ordered Spira complete drug rehabilitation on his return to Sydney, where his lawyer said he would be involved in “very lengthy and complex family law matters”.