Rescue stalwart admits pokie grant fraud
A prominent figure in maritime rescue has admitted fraud over pokie grant money.
Jeffrey Michael Horne, 55, a former safety inspector for Maritime New Zealand, has admitted falsifying 19 grant applications.
That included inventing minutes of meetings that never happened and forging signatures.
He pleaded guilty to one representative charge of using dishonestly using documents to obtain a financial advantage.
Christchurch District Court Judge Jane Farish lifted name suppression on Horne today and sentenced him to six months of community detention and 400 hours of community work – the maximum for both types of sentence.
He has already borrowed to pay reparations totalling $47,246 which was the money he received dishonestly.
Associates had received other funding from the false grants, the court was told. Defence counsel Pip Hall QC said Horne was “but one cog in the offending that enabled this to occur”.
But Judge Farish commented that Horne was “a willing cog”. One of the reasons for the ease of access to grant money was the standing he had in the rescue community.
Details of the offending – which Horne admitted – had been suppressed until his Crown sentencing today. The defence argued that Horne should have permanent suppression, but Crown prosecutor Heather McKenzie opposed final suppression and the judge agreed.
The reparation money will be paid to the court within 28 days so that it can be paid out to charities as originally intended.
Mr Hall said Horne was “genuinely remorseful” and had immediately co-operated with the Department of Internal Affairs investigation and had pleaded guilty.
Dr McKenzie said Horne had acknowledged his guilt when the investigation began in 2010. The delay had been caused by the complexity of the investigation, and by practical difficulties caused by the Christchurch earthquakes. She said it had been prolonged offending, involving multiple documents and a large amount of money.
Judge Farish acknowledged Horne’s rescue work which had involved putting his own safety at risk to rescue others. He had also been involved in teaching how rescues could be carried out in situations where it seemed impossible.
But she said it was serious, premeditated offending. She had to disabuse the community of any idea that “white collar fraud” only brought small penalties.
In 2002, Horne set up an incorporated society called Water Rescue which was able to apply for money from pokie machine operators
Between 2004 and 2009 he applied for 19 grants from a pokie trust, and 16 of them totalling $667,309 were approved. The grants were accompanied by documents. The charge related to the manner in which Horne applied for the grants, which produced funding used for him and his associates.
Horne forged the signature of another member of water rescue, created false minutes of non-existent meetings, and altered quotations and invoices.
That meant $47,246 was paid directly to Horne and another $227,000 has been traced to associates. Some of the money would have gone to legitimate community based organisations.
Since the offending was discovered, assets held by Water Rescue – several jet boats, a turbine, and engine – had been passed on to a proper charitable organisation doing Coast Guard work.
The court was told that Horne has since been regarded as a pariah in the watersports and rescue community, where the details of the prosecution were well known in spite of the suppression order. “There is still a small core group that stand by you notwithstanding your wrongdoing,” said the judge.
Horne has had to stop the work he was doing, and has taken up work in the building industry, which involved moving around sites and made a home detention sentence unworkable.
Judge Farish said she reduced his sentence because of the work he had done, the reparations, the guilty pleas, and the delay in the prosecution. This brought the penalty within a range where community detention could be imposed.
Category: Focus
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