A Shameful Episode - The ruin of Justice Bill Wilson - Part 1

Friday, 14 July 2023

In this unprecedented look at the highest echelons of New Zealand’s judiciary, reporter Martin van Beynen investigates the complex saga of Supreme Court Justice Bill Wilson’s downfall.

Part One of a four-part series traverses Wilson’s meteoric rise through the legal profession, culminating in his elevation to New Zealand’s highest court, the Supreme Court. It shows how a phone call made with the best of intentions would set in motion the unravelling of a promising career.

Erasing the stigma

Bill Wilson, 77, does not want to be remembered as a particular type of judge.

However, the type is not entirely clear because Wilson has advanced Parkinson’s, a slow-developing neurological condition which has robbed him of his ability to speak more than a few words at a time. The most obvious sign in sufferers is a tremor or shaking.

He now battles heroically to get words out and some just won’t come. As though the speaking impulse is diverted down the wrong neural path, the harder he tries, the worse his tremor gets. When words do emerge, his voice is not much more than a scratchy whisper.

But what is it that he does not want to be remembered as? After several attempts the listener can deduce it starts with “con”. Finally he spells it out, a letter at a time. C. O. N. T. R. O. V. E. R. S. I. A. L.

Unfortunately that might be the impression left by a saga starting 16 years ago when he was a Court of Appeal judge, soon to be promoted to the Supreme Court, the highest court in New Zealand.

In October 2010 he resigned from the Supreme Court after a complex set of events made his position untenable. It is one of the great New Zealand legal controversies, one that shook traditions, shattered friendships and left many feeling Wilson had been hung out to dry.

The eminent judge, law professor and legal writer Sir Ivor Richardson, who died in 2014, described the way Wilson was treated as a “shameful episode in the history of the New Zealand judiciary”.

In his book Yes Minister, former National minister Chris Finlayson looks back on the saga as the “most distressing thing that occurred during my nine years as Attorney-General”.

Peter Radford, whose company started the court proceeding which led to Wilson’s resignation, also looks back with regret but for different reasons.

Being reminded of the saga makes him “sick to my stomach”.

“It caused incalculable damage to my family while others received huge fees and others walked free… It is indeed a very dark period of New Zealand legal history.”

On any view, the facts were complicated, the nuances hard to discern and the law difficult to fathom. The finer points of such sagas do not percolate into the public memory. Bill Wilson? Wasn’t he the judge who resigned under a cloud? The stigma remains.

Wilson, who gets around in a wheelchair and occasionally uses a walker, might have left it at that and enjoyed his last years with wife Eva at their house on a hill in Kaiteriteri, about an hour’s drive from Nelson, resigned to the fact he couldn’t change public perceptions.

But due to an approach from a Blenheim lawyer, this correspondent finds himself sitting at Wilson’s table with the sun shining in and sliding doors open to a breathtaking view of the bushed hills and blue sea.

In preparation for the interview, Wilson has been going through his papers and been thinking about the whole saga again.

“I still think I was pretty hard done by,” he manages to say.

He partly blames his present condition on the stress of watching closed-mouthed as his integrity was impugned and his career stuttered to a bitter end.

“I was very upset and it affected my health very badly.”

He says his Parkinson’s started with a tremor in his left leg about the time the controversy arose in 2008. Friends say they noticed a tremor in his arm much earlier and thought Wilson seemed to be making too little of it.

After five years he was still able to work mostly unaffected but now it’s plainly awful. Thankfully he has Eva, a former nurse and physiology graduate, to look after him, and his son Mark and family are next door.

Parkinson’s is not fatal but could cause deadly complications if he gets a cold or flu.

The couple try to go out for a coffee at the local beach front cafe each day and have their routines, such as watching the six o’clock news and doing regular exercises, including speech therapy for his condition. But many daily activities are exhausting.

Still, he and Eva count themselves lucky to have three married children and five grandsons who bring much love into their lives.

The former high flyer still tries to do some work. He assesses cases for Philip Newland’s Auckland litigation funding company LPF, of which he is a director, and he also advises a large family trust.

He wants to dispel the impression he sits around all day stewing about the past.

“I had a marvellous career,” he says. “I’m still very proud of what I achieved.”

Primed for great things

Wilson was born in Auckland, the son of two school teachers. His father became the principal of Wellbourn Primary School in New Plymouth and Wilson went to New Plymouth Boys’ High, where he excelled at most things.

At Victoria University he studied law, eventually gaining an LLM (Hons) in 1969.

Law firm head Peter Radich, who started a lifelong friendship with Wilson at law school, says he was a standout student who clearly had a brilliant legal mind.

“He was extremely bright but also very down to earth and mixed with everyone. I was from a small town up north and pretty unsophisticated but we became good friends.”

Wilson’s sharp brain and affability ensured a rapid rise through the profession. He was a clear thinker and expressed himself concisely. Top law firm Bell Gully & Co made him a partner when he was only 24. He assisted the firm’s main litigation partner, Des Dalgety, dubbed “Diamond Des” by then Prime Minister David Lange, in a number of high profile defamation cases.

Former BNZ chairman and insolvency expert John Waller, who died in 2016, got to know Wilson in the early 90s as he tried to sort through the mess of the collapsed Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

The DFC was a government-owned enterprise that was set up in 1964 to provide venture capital and financial advice to industry. It was put in statutory management in 1989 and into liquidation two years later with a mountain of bad loans.

“Bill Wilson gave us sound, succinct, practical and accurate advice throughout. He had the capacity to reduce complex problems to their simplest and to identify ways forward,” Waller said in a 2010 letter.

Wilson was a member of the Waitangi Tribunal between 1986 and 1995, writing an important report on Napier Harbour. He held many posts in the New Zealand Law Society, including five years on the society’s disciplinary tribunal. His service to the society was described as “extraordinary” by then president Chris Darlow.

QC in no time

When Wilson left his firm to hang up his shingle as a barrister sole in 1996, he was immediately promoted to a Queen’s Counsel.

Wellington tax lawyer Geoff Harley, who worked with Wilson at Bell Gully and shared chambers with him, wasn’t surprised by the rapid promotion.

Wilson, he says, had an uncanny ability to very quickly get to the heart of any legal issue and “in short order express a resolution”.

“He’s also one of the nicest, most decent and humble people I ever worked with.”

Other friends agree but point to a stubborn, single-minded streak which could be a strength and a weakness, as events would prove.

Wilson mainly took on commercial briefs, specialising in finance, competition and media law and appeared before the Privy Council 20 times. He had celebrity clients, such as radio and television personality Mike Hosking, who turned to him to stop publication of photographs of his 18-month-old twins.

He wasn’t a great orator in court but was impressive in his grasp of facts and law and his measured and considered approach.

He sought consensus and avoided confrontation. Wilson could be in a meeting with five people with wildly different views and they would all leave thinking Wilson agreed with them, says a lawyer friend. His reputation was impeccable.

In a letter in 2010, Mary Scholtens, QC and Stephen Kos, QC (now Sir Stephen and a Supreme Court judge) said no-one had a greater reputation than Wilson for integrity while practising at the bar.

“He was decent, fair and trusted. His word was his bond. Neither of us can recall any criticism of [Wilson’s] integrity during his time at the bar.”

In his busy work life, he made time for his family - he has three children - and running half and full marathons.

He was an obvious candidate for the bench but rejected offers because he wanted to be a “player rather than a referee”.

The establishment of the New Zealand Supreme Court in 2004, to replace the Privy Council as New Zealand’s final appeal court, gave him a new career path and he was fast-tracked to the Court of Appeal in December 2006 without serving an apprenticeship in the High Court.

At the time Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias talked about his compassion and his “great moral courage”.

His appointment was celebrated and most of his colleagues appreciated his acceptance was a substantial personal sacrifice.

Racing interests

Wilson liked the sport of horse racing from the time his parents took him to the races several times a year.

Through work he became good friends with another renowned lawyer, Alan Galbraith, QC. Galbraith was also a world champion age-grade middle distance runner but his real love was horse racing, a pursuit into which he poured both time and money.

Wilson became part of a few horse racing syndicates and gradually his stake in the game grew. He wasn’t a big punter but he liked going to the course early in the morning to see the horses thundering around the track.

Wilson wasn’t the only high-flying lawyer in his circle involved in horse racing. His friend Dame Sian was, with her husband, businessman Hugh Fletcher, a major racehorse owner. Wilson and Elias had shares in some of the same horses.

When one of their horses was racing, they would go to the racecourse together to watch.

Galbraith had an association with a Matamata horse stud called Rich Hill, which he set up in 1994 with stud master John Thompson under the company Rich Hill Thoroughbreds. The name comes from County Armagh in Northern Ireland, where Thompson’s grandfather grew up.

Rich Hill Stud is now one of New Zealand’s leading thoroughbred nurseries, selling horses in Australia for prices up to $1.4 million. It counts Group One (highest racing level) winners such as Prince of Penzance, Xtravagant, Mufhasa, Ferlax, and Zarita among its graduates.

In 1998 the stud was expanding and Galbraith and Wilson formed a company called Rich Hill Ltd, which bought a 38ha dairy farm near Matamata to augment the land already owned by the stud through Rich Hill Thoroughbreds. The pair used borrowed money and their own cash to upgrade the property with native tree plantings, refurbished farm buildings and the obligatory fence palings.

Wilson had access to the former dairy farm house and Galbraith had a modest Lockwood home on Rich Hill Thoroughbreds’ property. The pair also part-owned several racehorses, one of which was Pravda, an entrant in the Melbourne Cup in 2000. Elias and her husband also had shares in the horse. A 50-1 chance, any meagre hopes were dashed when she refused to budge from outside the birdcage. The race had to be postponed for 10 minutes. Pravda, usually sweet-natured, did not race again and in 2019 was still producing foals.

The disaster sparked a plethora of puns when either Galbraith or Wilson appeared in court afterwards.

Rich Hill Ltd bred one or two horses a year and either kept them or sold them. Wilson and Galbraith also belonged to three partnerships with Elias and Fletcher that owned broodmares.

A mates’ arrangement

Wilson and Galbraith agreed to contribute equal amounts to Rich Hill Ltd and, as good mates, did not see the need for a written agreement. They accepted their contributions would sometimes get out of kilter but arranged to balance the ledger at certain times, such as at the end of the financial year.

Galbraith held the cheque book and was happy to be the more active partner in managing the horse stud and developing the property. He tended to put his own money into the venture while Wilson preferred to borrow the required contributions for tax reasons.

Harley says the pair were very proud of their stud farm. “The money was the last thing they were bothered with. They put money in when Alan said that was what they needed to do.”

In 2006 the stud expanded again by buying a 48ha block of neighbouring land for $2.16m. Rich Hill Ltd (Galbraith and Wilson’s company) agreed to fund a third of the purchase and arranged a loan to cover its share.

In the same year Wilson reorganised his finances by repaying his existing loans and taking out a new loan of $900,000. Rich Hill Ltd, with Galbraith’s agreement, guaranteed the loan. By then Wilson had already put about $1m into the stud.

In December 2006, he was appointed to the Court of Appeal.

Saxon sheep

Two months after Wilson started his stint on the Court of Appeal bench, he was allocated a case which, for brevity’s sake, we will call Saxmere.

Saxmere Company was owned by a small number of New Zealand and Tasmanian farmers who had built up flocks of Saxon sheep, originally bred in Saxony. Saxon sheep were imported into Australia in the 1800s, with the Winton Stud in Tasmania maintaining a pure Saxon flock since the 1830s.

Saxon wool was known for its super fine and spring back quality. Thanks mainly to the efforts of North Canterbury farmer Peter Radford, the wool was sold to European high fashion manufacturing outfits under the brand Escorial. Its market breakthrough occurred in 1997 when Escorial wool was bought by the Italian luxury menswear brand Brioni, based in Rome. At the time only three flocks, comprising 35,000 animals, met the Saxon accreditation criteria and two of those were in Tasmania.

In 1997 and 1998, producers of Saxon wool were not a big part of the wool industry. Fine wool was only about 4% of total New Zealand wool production and Saxon wool a tiny proportion of that.

Saxmere had a beef with the Wool Board, which had marketed and sold all New Zealand-produced wool since 1944. Radford and his Saxon sheep farmers had their own technology, obtained their own customers and did their own marketing, yet still had to pay a levy to the Wool Board for research and development.

Some of the money ended up in the hands of other merino farmers, who were trying to sell to the same markets as Saxmere. Radford and his Saxon farmers were understandably miffed at seeing their levies benefiting what was essentially the competition.

Between 1998 and 2002, Saxmere, headed by its main producer, Radford, asked the Wool Board (which was disestablished in 2001 but continued for some time) for various amounts of funding. Although the Wool Board provided some money, at a crucial point it decided to fund the larger Merino New Zealand organisation and told Saxmere to work with that body.

Saxmere, represented by Nelson lawyer Sue Grey, began preparing High Court proceedings against the Wool Board in 2003. The court action prevented the board from distributing the $7m it had in its kitty when it was disbanded.

Radford says he literally “bet the farm” on getting a favourable result and Grey agreed to postpone any fees pending a good outcome.

High Court win

The company had partial success in the High Court in late 2005. It found that in funding Merino New Zealand, the Wool Board should have considered whether Saxmere was in fact the best entity to market Saxon wool. Because it hadn’t done so, the Wool Board was liable to pay damages for negligence and for breaching its statutory duty, the High Court said.

Both Saxmere and the Wool Board took an appeal to the Court of Appeal, which was heard in April 2007. Wilson was on the appeal court panel with Justices Susan Glazebrook and William Young. Alan Galbraith was briefed to appear for the Wool Board and Francis Cooke, QC and Grey appeared for Saxmere.

In the weeks before the hearing, Wilson made a fateful telephone call to Cooke to disclose his association with Galbraith.

Wilson now concedes he should have declared his interest through the court’s registrar (the overall court manager) who would then have communicated with the parties. However, he wasn’t dealing with a conflict of interest which would have arisen if he had any skin in the game. He was a horse breeder, not a sheep farmer. In addition, he had discussed the prospect of friends appearing before him with the Chief Justice and she had been relaxed about it. Both he and Galbraith had appeared before her.

“It’s ironic that in a case over disclosure of my interests, my mistake was actually over-disclosing by telephoning Francis Cooke,” Wilson says.

He was later adamant he told Cooke about the friendship and the dual ownership of a horse stud. Cooke remembered it a little differently, saying he thought Wilson had told him about joint “horse racing” or perhaps “bloodstock” interests. Wilson urged Cooke to consult his client and come back to him if they had any queries. Radford raised no objection, although, according to Grey, wasn’t entirely happy.

In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeal found against Saxmere, saying the Wool Board was not obliged to consider Saxmere in making its funding decisions because Saxmere was not doing something which was really the board’s job.

Saxmere was determined to take its case to the Supreme Court but since it had no automatic right of appeal, it had to ask the court for leave or permission to lodge that appeal. The court refused leave.

In the meantime Wilson continued his rapid rise to the highest echelons of the judiciary when, in February 2008, he took up an appointment to the Supreme Court.

* Clarification: Photos of Rich Hill Stud have been removed. The stud is a separate entity to Bill Wilson’s Rich Hill Ltd, though had business relationships.

In PART TWO of the series, Radford and his lawyer are surprised about the scale of the racing stud in which Wilson and Galbraith are partners. They gather information which they believe shows an independent observer might think Wilson would have been unable to adjudicate impartially when he sat on the appeal with two other judges. They lodge a complaint and file for a new trial.