Still hopes of repayment from Alligator Drainage work, court told
Graham Daniel Lilley is continuing efforts to get money back from EQC for his Alligator Drainage Ltd customers in Christchurch, even as he begins his 10-month home detention term for fraud.
His lawyer, the Crown, and Christchurch District Court Judge Jane Farish accepted that his business had been legitimate and he was “not a rip-off merchant”.
After complaints and bad publicity the company went into liquidation and all its documentation was seized – 22,000 documents.
In recent months, the documentation has become available again from the liquidator and 39-year-old Lilley has been working through it to find DVDs, photographs, and documents relating to work that Alligator Drainage did.
This has led to more claims for reimbursement for the clients who were left out of pocket being made to the EQC.
Judge Farish told Lilley: “I am happy to hear that you are still of the view that you can do more to help, through further reviews by EQC, to rectify the harm you have caused.”
Lilley has already paid $20,000 to the court to go towards reparations. He has agreed to pay $100 a week for two years as further reparations while he continues to work while serving home detention in Lower Hutt.
The payments will total $30,400 which will be apportioned among the 18 victims who were left $149,000 out of pocket.
Lilley will serve eight months of home detention, and will then have six months on post-release conditions. Judge Farish will judicially monitor him, getting regular reports on his compliance with the sentence and his reparation payments.
She warned him at the Crown sentencing today that if he failed with the obligations, she would resentence him to a jail term.
Crown prosecutor Karyn South said the charges arose from false representations by Lilley that there was a “fast-track turn-around refund scheme” between EQC and Alligator Drainage. This did not exist. There were also claims that some of the repair work had been far more extensive than required.
Defence counsel, Kevin Smith of Wellington, said Alligator Drainage had been a legitimate enterprise. Problems had arisen after a falling-out with EQC when Lilley continued to claim that he had accreditation and continued with the work.
Lilley had not been a rip-off merchant but had taken steps to try to help his clients rather than abandon them. The liquidators indicated there had been no unusual payments from the company to Lilley or his family.
Judge Farish said Alligator Drainage Ltd had been set up in 2011 to do drainage repairs after the Christchurch earthquakes. The relationship with EQC soured in 2013, at a time when Lilley had commitments to staff wages, and machinery he had bought.
He continued to operate the company, and things went wrong when he told people that he still had an arrangement with EQC and the money for repairs would be reimbursed within 14 days.
Many of the customers were older people who were already struggling and could not afford the repairs. Some were repaid, or received partial repayments.
Bad publicity followed when EQC and the media became aware of what Lilley was saying. The company went into liquidation and Lilley found his name was “mud” and moved to Wellington.
The publicity followed him there and he was no longer running a business, but was working as an employee.
He eventually admitted 21 charges of obtaining by deception involving 18 victims.
Judge Farish said that since receiving more material about the case, the Crown had said in its sentencing submissions that it did not see Lilley “in the light of a rip-off merchant”.
Charges have all been dropped against a second man who had been charged over Alligator Drainage Ltd’s activities.
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