The confounding case of Michael Colosimo: Falsely convicted or fraudulent conman?
Saturday, 4 July 2026
For 15 years, Michael Colosimo has been desperately fighting to prove he’s not a forger and fraudster, and should never have been jailed. But others are convinced he ruined their lives and got what he deserved. Mike White investigates whether the former restaurant king is a bruised victim or brazen liar.
One afternoon towards the end of 2007, Michael Dyke walked along Tauranga’s waterfront, and turned to board his floating restaurant.
Six months earlier, Dyke and his wife, Sue, had bought the Kestrel from local restaurant king Michael Colosimo, but even with summer and the Christmas function season approaching Dyke was worried it had all been a massive mistake.
Passing by was local bookkeeper Kevin McFadden, who’d known Dyke for 15 years, and after greeting each other, McFadden asked Dyke how his new restaurant was going.
“Terrible,” McFadden remembered Dyke replying.
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Then Dyke looked at McFadden and said, “How did you ever get to those figures - $200,000?”
McFadden didn’t know what he was talking about, so Dyke explained that before he bought the restaurant, Colosimo gave him accounts prepared by McFadden’s company, Bay Taxation Services, showing the Kestrel made nearly $200,000 profit over its first 10 months.
McFadden was nonplussed, and said he didn’t think he’d drawn up the accounts.
So Dyke told McFadden to follow him, and the pair went on board the Kestrel, where Dyke unlocked a filing cabinet and handed McFadden a two-page document on Bay Taxation Services letterhead.
“I didn’t do these,” McFadden said, scanning the spreadsheet of figures.
“I immediately thought, it’s a forgery of some sort,” he later recalled.
“The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.”
McFadden told Dyke to wait there, and raced back to his office a few minutes away on Devonport Rd.
In a filing cabinet, he found the accounts he had prepared for Colosimo, and went straight back to Dyke on the Kestrel.
“This is the one that I did,” McFadden said, handing him a document with a trading profit of $82,000 for the Kestrel’s first eight months. Then he pointed to Dyke’s document detailing $199,000 profit for a similar period.
“This one is nothing like what I’ve ever produced,” McFadden told Dyke.
The two men stared at each other, shocked and reeling.
Eventually, McFadden walked back to his office, “and looked out the window and wondered what the hell was going on.”
A 15-year fight
Nearly two decades later, everyone is still trying to work out what was going on.
None more so than Michael Colosimo, who was eventually convicted of forging the accounts he gave to the Dykes when they were considering buying the Kestrel.
Colosimo, who’d charged into Tauranga in 1999, setting up numerous restaurants and bars, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in 2011 for deceiving the Dykes, who were bankrupted and lost their house when the Kestrel went belly up.
But Colosimo has always claimed he’s innocent, that he didn’t doctor the document, and that he’s a victim of small-city politics, personal vendettas, and police malpractice.
He swears he was clueless with computers and simply couldn’t have created a fake spreadsheet.
Colosimo is adamant the real forger was his business manager and director of 12 of his companies, claims he made during his trial, and ever since.
He’s still fighting to clear his name. And for six years he’s had an application with the Criminal Cases Review Commission that investigates potential wrongful convictions.
Progress is incredibly slow. Colosimo is incredibly frustrated.
And the truth about what really happened, and who was responsible, is incredibly difficult to divine.
A sinking ship
Actually, it’s not difficult, says Michael Colosimo. It’s simple.
It all comes down to a single piece of A4 paper, and it’s completely obvious what happened, he says.
Now 62, Australian-born Colosimo came to New Zealand aged 19, and opened his first restaurant, Capri, in Remuera, when he was 21.
Colosimo’s father had owned pizza parlours and billiard rooms, and Colosimo Jr took to the hospitality industry easily.
When he moved to Tauranga, Colosimo owned a number of restaurants and pubs, some being successful, others ending in flames and acrimony. In February 2005, Colosimo opened the Kestrel, a 100-year-old former Auckland ferry, after spending $1.3 million fitting it out.
At one point, a former Tauranga detective with shares in the Kestrel wanted to buy it outright, but the deal fell over.
And that’s when the Dykes came along. They’d owned a successful electrical business, and been regular diners at Colosimo’s restaurants, and when Colosimo bumped into Michael Dyke one day in late 2006, he suggested Sue Dyke come and work for him at the restaurant.
Dyke said his wife wouldn’t work there, but she might if she owned it.
“Have a talk to her,” Colosimo told Dyke.
So, over the next few months, the Dykes arranged to buy the Kestrel. Colosimo says he asked his business manager, Barry Harvey, to give him a set of accounts showing how the restaurant was trading, and he delivered these to the Dykes, while the Dykes also got an independent valuation of the restaurant.
That valuation came in at $583,000. In the end, the Dykes offered Colosimo $400,000 plus $33,000 for stock, and Colosimo, who was keen to move back to Australia where he had two other restaurants, took it.
In April 2007, the Dykes took over the Kestrel, but things didn’t work out as they hoped, with costs higher than expected, and profits illusory.
And that’s when Michael Dyke met Kevin McFadden on Tauranga’s waterfront, and the alarm went off for the Dykes.
When McFadden told them the $199,000 profit document was likely a forgery, the Dykes went to the police, believing they’d been duped by Colosimo and his false estimate of the Kestrel’s profits.
But nothing could save the Kestrel: In June 2008, the business went into voluntary liquidation, and three months later the Dykes were bankrupted, owing over $300,000, and losing their home, and $200,000 a family member had put into the business.
Tauranga crime squad detective Peter Sweeney’s theory was that Colosimo had doctored a set of accounts, doubled the Kestrel’s profit, added a cover sheet from bookkeeper Kevin McFadden’s company to add legitimacy (from a stash McFadden left at Colosimo’s office for any accounts he did), and given these to the Dykes to encourage them to buy the restaurant.
Sweeney arrested Colosimo for fraud, and in 2011 his trial began in Tauranga.
But proceedings halted on the second day, when a crucial document came to light.
This was another set of Kestrel trading accounts, from February to November 2005, prepared by Tauranga accounting firm, LB Dawson and Associates.
It was a legitimate document showing the restaurant’s 10-month profit to be $99,000.
It quickly became apparent this had been taken as a template by someone on February 3, 2006 using a computer in Colosimo’s office to create the Dykes’ forged document by inflating the profit from $99,000 to $199,000.
From that point, the trial hinged on who altered the Dawsons document.
The Crown said it was Colosimo.
Colosimo’s lawyers said it was Barry Harvey, a former bank manager Colosimo hired in August 2005 to help run his businesses.
These were the competing arguments.
Scenario 1: Michael Colosimo did it
The Crown said Colosimo’s business empire was crashing, he was desperate to find cash to pay debts, so he forged Kestrel accounts to make it appear the restaurant was more profitable than it was, and would thus entice the Dykes to buy it.
The fact many others lost money in Colosimo’s various restaurant ventures showed he was reckless and in serious financial trouble, which led to his bankruptcy in 2008 owing creditors close to $1 million.
Scenario 2: Barry Harvey did it
Harvey was previously employed by the BNZ in Tauranga, and became a director of 12 of Colosimo’s companies soon after beginning working for him - though Harvey said he only did this as a favour to Colosimo.
Colosimo’s lawyers said the forged document was created on a computer Harvey had access to in the office, and was in a computer folder under his name.
They said Harvey had been dealing with former colleagues at the BNZ about extending an overdraft or getting funding for Colosimo’s company that owned the Kestrel - Cervino Holdings - and asked Dawsons to draw up trading accounts to support that - this was the legitimate $99,000 document.
They alleged Harvey then doctored these accounts, added $100,000 to the profits, and sent them to the BNZ, to ensure the overdraft extension was granted.
Later, when the Dykes were interested in buying the Kestrel, and Colosimo asked Harvey for trading accounts of the business, they alleged Harvey put these false accounts in an envelope, which Colosimo took to the Dykes.
Dodgy documents and faulty figures
But why would Harvey do this?
Colosimo’s lawyers pointed to the fact Harvey and his wife had at least $44,000 invested in Cervino (in addition, his wife was owed $12,000 in wages for working as a functions manager for Colosimo), and said he desperately wanted to get that money back.
At Colosimo’s trial, Harvey accepted being concerned about this. “That’s one of the only reasons I remained in Michael’s employ for the period I did, to try to recover that money, unsuccessfully.”
So when the Dykes came knocking, Colosimo’s lawyers said Harvey wanted to expedite the sale so some cash came into Cervino, and he could recoup his investment.
Colosimo and his lawyers allege Harvey faked the Dawsons accounts to show $199,000 profit, in order to get an overdraft extension for Cervino from BNZ, and later used the same document to entice the Dykes to purchase the Kestrel.
Harvey has always utterly denied he falsified the document the Dykes received, insisting he never saw it, Colosimo never asked for any accounts to be given to the Dykes, and he couldn’t remember seeing blank letterhead pages from Bay Taxation Services at Colosimo’s office.
“Absolutely not. Totally deny that entirely,” Harvey stated under cross-examination at Colosimo’s trial. “I’m not a dishonest person.”
But then Colosimo’s lawyers produced another set of trading accounts, for another of Colosimo’s companies, Arabba Investments, which operated one of Colosimo’s Australian restaurants.
The document was for six months to the end of December 2005, and was also on Bay Taxation Services letterhead, and typewritten numbers on it had been altered by hand.
Kevin McFadden, Bay Taxation Services’ owner, said he didn’t prepare the document, despite it being on his company’s letterhead, and wasn’t working for Colosimo then.
Harvey accepted it was his handwriting on the document but said he had no idea why he would have altered it.
“The figures are certainly mine. How the document was created, I don’t know,” Harvey told the court.
When Colosimo’s lawyer, Bill Nabney, suggested Harvey had forged the Arabba document, the judge immediately intervened, warning Harvey he could decline to answer any question that might incriminate him.
When Nabney repeated his question, Harvey replied: “I would decline to answer that. I do not wish to, yeah.”
Nabney then challenged Harvey that he had doctored the Kestrel trading accounts from Dawsons, adding $100,000 to the profit.
“Not to my knowledge, no,” replied Harvey.
Harvey, who now lives in Australia, was unable to be contacted for this story.
However, he has steadfastly denied any involvement with the forged Kestrel document, telling a reporter in 2018: “It's been through court, all the evidence was presented, and he was found guilty.”
From kitchen to clink
Michael Colosimo’s defence was based on two main things.
Firstly, he couldn’t use a computer, couldn’t even send an email, and certainly lacked the skills to create the forged Excel spreadsheet. Forensic analysis showed it took only eight minutes to create, suggesting computer proficiency. Evidence was heard from Colosimo’s staff that his computer expertise extended to switching it on, and playing solitaire.
“I build the places, not sit in an office behind a computer,” Colosimo told the court. “That’s why I don’t use a computer.”
Secondly, Colosimo has always insisted the Kestrel was profitable, and he had no reason to falsify any accounts.
At his trial, a picture was painted of the Kestrel haemorrhaging money, possibly $25,000 a month.
“Although the Kestrel was still floating by the end of the fitout, your concept had sunk it,” prosecutor Julie O’Brien claimed in court, suggesting the Kestrel’s set-up costs saddled it with impossible debt.
“You were desperate, and this was the last ditch to sell this business before your empire started to disintegrate.”
But Colosimo insists the Kestrel “was keeping its head on the right side of the ledger”.
He says this was proven by both legitimate sets of trading accounts: the $82,000 profit for February to September 2005, and the $99,000 profit for February to November.
Moreover, the Dykes’ own independent valuation said the business was worth $583,000, and in court they agreed their turnover had been what Colosimo promised.
Colosimo argues the Dykes simply mismanaged the business, including paying excessive staff costs.
But he says the police seemed fixated on convicting him, despite the evidence, with a group of aggrieved people, including the former detective who’d been a business partner in the Kestrel, driving this.
“The police in New Zealand think they’re above the law. It was a f…..g casino.
“I knew I was gone for all money. It was all a f…..g jack up.”
In the end, the jury took just two hours to convict him.
After the verdict, many in the gallery applauded as the jury filed out.
Colosimo also knew he was going to jail.
The morning of his sentencing, he lay down on the bed with his five-year-old son, and told him “Papa won’t be coming home.”
Judge Peter Rollo described Colosimo’s actions as “fraudulent, dishonest, and greedy”, saying he had shown “arrogance and indifference to the circumstances of others”.
And he made special mention of Harvey, saying the verdicts confirmed his 'honesty and integrity'.
He sentenced Colosimo to two years and six months prison, adding that even if the sentence had been less than two years, he wouldn’t have granted Colosimo home detention, because his crimes required a denunciation of forgery.
Colosimo was handcuffed, led away, and bundled into the back of a prison van.
‘I’m not the naughty one’
In the end, Colosimo served 13 months at Waikeria Prison, getting parole at his first hearing, despite continuing to vigorously deny guilt.
Fifteen years on, he’s still doing the same.
But why, after all this time, won’t he let it drop and get on with life?
“Because I’ve been fitted up by the cops, and I’ll never let it lie.
“I’m not the naughty one here, the police are the naughty one.”
The detective Colosimo points the finger at mainly is Peter Sweeney, who led the investigation.
In emails released under the Official Information Act, Sweeney claimed: “It was clear to me by comments made after the verdict that this result has had a significant positive impact on the business community in Tauranga who always considered Colosimo a bit of a ‘Teflon man’.”
After the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) declined to fully investigate Colosimo’s case, saying there was no evidence of police misconduct, Sweeney wrote to another officer: “Is it just me, or have they proper drop-kicked [Colosimo] into touch? Looks like a huge influence (in my favour) from the Crown Solicitor.”
In another email, Sweeney referred to an application from Colosimo’s daughter for his Australian passport to be returned.
“He won’t be needing it anyway, as he’s in gaol. Shame,” Sweeney replied.
Not everyone was impressed by Sweeney’s work, however, including a police officer involved in the case.
Morven Weight was a constable in Taupō, who happened to be friends with key police witness Brenda Ward, who was Colosimo’s office administrator.
In a four-page email to her senior officers, Weight outlined how Sweeney grilled her about Ward, called Colosimo “a snake”, and warned Weight to “be careful” otherwise she might end up in court having to give evidence.
“I feel Detective Sweeney has abused my friendship with Brenda, to try and glean information in relation to his trial,” Weight wrote.
“I am disgusted that he has behaved in this way. His behaviour amounts to nothing more than trickery and deceit, and not the behaviour that I believe becomes a police officer.
“His treatment of Brenda as a witness has been abysmal, his deceit toward me is unforgivable. I am ashamed, embarrassed, and disappointed for the first time in a 12-year career.”
According to the IPCA, police dismissed Weight’s concerns as “merely her perception of what had happened”.
Weight declined to comment.
The Post asked police, and Sweeney via them, numerous questions about Colosimo’s case, which were unanswered.
Detective Inspector Lindsay Pilbrow, Bay of Plenty District Field Crime Manager, said their investigation was tested in the courts, and Colosimo found guilty.
“It would be inappropriate for police to comment on that finding.”
The blame game
Brenda Ward says Colosimo’s trial was “one of the single most horrible experiences of my life”.
Due to Colosimo’s accepted computer incompetence, the Crown suggested Ward drew up the forged document for him.
Ward was due to be a prosecution witness, but Sweeney claimed she was unreliable, and she was dropped.
Ward says this happened because she wouldn’t say what Sweeney wanted her to.
“I stuck to my guns right from the word go. I don’t lie for anybody. I don’t roll over for anybody.”
Ward was shocked Colosimo was found guilty and jailed, saying it damaged her faith in the police and court system.
While she sometimes butted heads with Colosimo when working for him, Ward enjoyed her job.
“I used to call him the mad Italian. He’s very excitable, he’s very passionate and he’s very on to it in terms of his businesses.
“A lot of people made a lot of money out of Michael, and being in business with him.
“When everything was going well, people loved him, they were falling all over him. But when the shit hit the fan, they took sides and rallied against him. There was a lot of hate going on.
“People have always got to blame somebody else.”
Ward backs up Colosimo in suggesting the Kestrel failed because the Dykes mismanaged it, with sky-high staff costs and poor stock control.
She says the Dykes asked her for help on at least two occasions, but was left feeling the new owners simply didn’t know what they were doing.
Sue Dyke says this is “rubbish”, noting she had owned a restaurant before, and currently manages a successful club.
She has no doubt Colosimo forged the document he gave them.
“He’s guilty, and he’s just a twat.”
Dyke says Colosimo was a friend, “unfortunately”.
They did due diligence, and trusted Colosimo and the accounts he provided.
But she sensed something was wrong after just two weeks running the Kestrel.
After three months, the Dykes wanted out, but were convinced to stick with the restaurant.
“If we’d walked away then, we would have still had our house.”
When Dyke confronted Colosimo about the shortfall in profits, “he just told me I was a shit operator.
“But I didn’t have the same sort of calculator he had. I don’t think anyone has.”
Dyke says it took a long time to get their life back together after the Kestrel’s collapse. Their bankruptcy affected them for seven years, while Colosimo was in jail for barely a year.
“We couldn’t get time off our bankruptcy for good behaviour.”
She hasn’t seen Colosimo, who now lives in Auckland, since his trial: “And I’d run him over if I did.
“I don’t know how he lies straight in bed. He sent so many people to the wall.
“He’s never going to own up to anything, is he, because that’s the sort of person he is.
“But he just needs to suck it up.”
That’s the last thing Colosimo will ever do, as he tries to clear his name.
Having been turned down by the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and got nowhere with the IPCA, Colosimo leapt at the opportunity to prove his innocence through the Criminal Cases Review Commission, established to investigate potential wrongful convictions.
As soon as the CCRC began in 2020, Colosimo applied to the body, outlining the faults with his case.
After initially rejecting Colosimo’s case, the CCRC agreed to reconsider it, but can’t say when its assessment will be completed.
All of which infuriates Colosimo, given he applied to the body nearly six years ago.
“We’re not talking about a murder or rape. We’re talking about a one-page document.
“It’s ludicrous, but you can’t get any traction. They really just want me to go away.
“Why don’t they get their finger out of their arse and start moving forward, so people can get on with their lives.”
The story continues…
But nothing is straightforward in Michael Colosimo’s case.
As this story was being finalised, The Post spoke with three people who say they’re owed money by Colosimo, and brand him a conman.
Gagandeep Sahota began working for Colosimo at his Auckland restaurant, Scalini’s, in 2017, after arriving from India.
When Colosimo mentioned he was looking to open a factory to supply pizzas and heat-and-eat meals to supermarkets, Sahota thought it was a good investment opportunity.
He signed a handwritten unconditional agreement, seen by The Post, to put $200,000 into the venture, in return for a 45% share in the business.
In the end, Sahota says he put in about $100,000, much of it borrowed from his father in India, but never got a shareholder agreement from Colosimo.
Colosimo says Sahota didn’t invest the agreed $200,000, leaving him in the lurch as he tried to establish his factory, and that’s why there was never any shareholder agreement.
Eventually, having seen no returns on his investment, Sahota asked for his money back, and says Colosimo has repaid about $15,000. (Colosimo says it’s more.)
He stopped working for Colosimo several years ago, and has fought to recover his money since then.
Sahota says the saga has left him angry and frustrated, and the money he’s owed would make a big difference to him and his wife, who is expecting their second child.
“I wish I would never have invested money with him.”
A woman says she loaned Colosimo over $170,000 to help build his factory, and he’s paid back about $50,000 of this.
Colosimo insists what he owes her is much less, and cites numerous examples of work he’s done for the woman, helping her business affairs, which have significantly reduced his debt.
Despite this, the woman has taken him to court to recover the money she’s owed, with a hearing in September.
But Colosimo says the woman still eats at his restaurant weekly, and has made ridiculous claims against him.
“I don’t deny I owe her money, but she’s claiming too much.”
A third person, who also wishes to remain anonymous, says she loaned Colosimo $60,000 for his factory, with suggestions she become a shareholder.
Colosimo drafted an agreement, but the woman says he never signed an official document, despite her efforts.
While Colosimo has paid back some of the loan, she’s still owed $20,000, and, like Sahota, is considering going to the police.
“The part that really upsets me is that I trusted him. It’s the overall betrayal, that somebody would take advantage of a single mum.
“Basically, he’s a thief. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a conman, absolutely.”
The woman, who was a customer at Colosimo’s restaurant, says Colosimo’s debts show “it’s a pattern”.
Another person who declined to speak to The Post, is also believed to be owed money by Colosimo.
Accusations and counter-claims fly, as is inevitable when there are disagreements over money.
Just as inevitably, there are two sides to each of these stories, and vastly varying views of events.
Colosimo is indignant he’s being cast as a crook by former friends, and supplies a welter of documents to support his outrage.
He says the only pattern is that he’s borrowed money from people to try to expand his food business, things haven’t worked out, he’s paid back what he could, but until business picks up again, he can’t pay any more.
And the whole reason he’s borrowed from friends and customers is because his fraud conviction means banks won’t lend to him.
“You can’t even get a one cent overdraft. My life has been f….d over for 15 years.”
Times are tough in the hospitality business, with Colosimo closing his factory supplying supermarkets.
“We’re struggling. The last two years have been diabolical.”
Colosimo insists he didn’t ask any of the people for money - they all offered it to him, to help build his business.
And he asks, if he really was a conman, why would he have already paid back some of the money to these people?
“One day, if I come right, of course I’ll pay it back. But I can’t guarantee that, because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Colosimo denies he’s on the warpath to get his fraud conviction overturned. But it’s hard to see it any other way: He wants to clear his name, and expose those who were so intent on getting him jailed.
“There’s so much bullshit in my case.
“It’s sad. It’s awful.
“But the day I get my conviction overturned, I’m going to slaughter some people.”