Sir Ngatata Love sent to prison after showing 'no sign of remorse'

Friday, 7 October 2016

In 2016, Sir Ngatata Love was sentenced to two years and six months prison.

Sir Ngatata Love's plea to be spared jail was rejected after the High Court saw no sign of remorse from the disgraced Maori leader.

On Friday Justice Graham Lang sentenced Love to two-and-a-half years in prison, despite acknowledging the 79-year-old suffered from a serious heart condition, diabetes and dementia.

Justice Lang gave Love discounts to his sentence he would have otherwise faced on account of both his storied career of public service and failing health.

Former Tenths Trust chairman and Te Puni Kokiri chief executive Sir Ngatata Love stands in the dock during the first day of his sentencing hearing in the Wellington High Court on Thursday.

But he rejected Love's appeal for an additional 'mercy discount' which would have reduced the sentence to two years, a length which would have made him eligible for home detention.

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Members of Sir Ngatata Love's family carry what appear to be his possessions into court, ahead of his first night in prison.

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Professor Ngatata Love and Prime Minister John Key hongi in 2009, after signing the Crown apology, an historical statement of forgiveness after Parliament passed legislation enacting a treaty settlement covering the wider Wellington region.

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The signing of the deed of surrender for Athletic Park is signed by Wellington Rugby deputy chairman Paul Quinn, Professor Ngatata Love, and Wellington Rugby chairman Rhys Barlow, passing ownership of the former ground to the Wellington Tenths Trust. The ground is now home to a retirement village.

* Sir Ngatata Love claims partner was wrongly claiming to represent him to developers

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* Crown says Sir Ngatata Love should face jail 'however harsh that might seem'**

Justice Lang said while he could reduce the sentence further he would not do so because of the need to show a deterrent and the fact that Love had never said he was sorry.

A pre-sentence report said Love 'understood how the court came to the decision' and needed to move on.

'I do not see anywhere, however, an acknowledgement of the effect that your offending has had on the victims,' Lang said.

'I do not see any insight into the damage you have caused, and I do not see any remorse for what has occurred.'

During a brief address, Love told Justice Lang that what he had been involved in was not 'intentional' but did not appear to apologise.

Love's immediate future was briefly thrown into doubt after his lawyer, Colin Carruthers QC, made an urgent application for his client to be bailed while the sentence was appealed.

However the Court of Appeal confirmed it could not hear the appeal for more than a month, Justice Lang rejected the application for bail.

Members of Love's family, many of whom have been in court supporting him for weeks, were soon seen carrying a bag into the court, believed to contain Love's possessions for his first night in jail.

The sentence comes more than four years after The Dominion Post revealed a series of allegations about the business dealings of Love and his then partner Lorraine Skiffington.

Carruthers said the guilty finding marked an 'astonishing fall from grace' for Love, once one of the most powerful figures in Maoridom.

As well as chairman of both the Wellington Tenths and Port Nicholson Block Settlement trusts, Love was a top public servant.

A career in academia, where he was Professor of Business Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, was interrupted by five years as chief executive of Te Puni Kokiri.

Those close to him claimed that then Prime Minister Helen Clark spoke to Love frequently, and in 2009 he travelled to Buckingham Palace to be knighted by Prince Charles. He had previously been an avowed republican.

Justice Lang said for 40 years Love had devoted his life 'selflessly' to the advancement of Maori in the lower North Island and nationwide.

'I cannot hope here to capture the contribution you have made to New Zealand society.'

But Love was charged in relation to a $1.5 million payment made from developers wanting to build on Tenths Trust land, which went into a company controlled by Skiffington.

The money was used to pay down the mortgage on a home the two had bought months earlier to live in together.

Love's fellow trustees only found out about the payment years later, while the developers believed the money was being used for the benefit of the trust, Justice Lang said.

Although they continued to live together in the house until 2015, Love claimed during the trial and during sentencing that Skiffington had taken advantage of him.

Both Love and Skiffington were charged in relation to a series of offences back in 2013, along with Matene Love, Sir Ngatata Love's son.

However wide-ranging suppression orders prevented any coverage of the case - including when Matene Love pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to home detention in 2015.

The suppression orders only lifted at the start of Sir Ngatata Love's trial at the start of August, when it could be revealed that most of the charges had been dropped and Skiffington had been granted a permanent stay against prosecution on account of her ill health.

While there have been calls for Love to be stripped of his knighthood, the Prime Minister's office has indicated this will only be considered after Love's appeal options have been exhausted.

Victoria University of Wellington could also recuse the emeritus title of professor which Love holds, but it too has said it would not comment while court proceedings continued.

On Friday Lang refused to impose a reparation order against Love.

He noted that the house which Love and Skiffington had shared, at 12 Moana Road in Plimmerton, was subject to an order under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The Commissioner of the Police was likely to request that the property be forfeited to the Crown.