Experts look into taking knighthood from Brierley
Guilty plea on child sex charges spurs PM to act over honour
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has asked officials to begin work on a process that could lead to Sir Ron Brierley being stripped of his knighthood.
Confirmation of the step came on Thursday after the businessman’s guilty plea to three of 17 charges of possessing child sex abuse material.
It immediately brought fresh calls for Brierley to lose the honour, or for him to resign from holding it.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said she had asked officials to start the process of judging whether Brierley should forfeit the honour.
Officials expert in the Queen’s honours system had detailed the process to be followed in an email to Ardern’s office when Brierley was arrested, according to documents released under the Official Information Act.
Ultimately it would fall to Ardern to advise the Queen that the knighthood should be removed, on advice from the Honours Unit in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
That is the specialist team, staffed by public servants expert in the arcane-seeming world of Queen’s honours and awards, whose role is to give the Government neutral advice.
Emails released through the OIA show the Prime Minister’s office was immediately bombarded with questions about Brierley’s knighthood and calling for it to be removed.
Rachel Hayward, deputy secretary of Cabinet, told the PM’S office a series of triggers could cause Ardern to ask the Queen to cancel the knighthood.
Her advice was not specific to Brierley but in response to questions about his knighthood.
She said triggers included a situation where “an individual’s actions are such that, if they continue to hold that honour, the honours system would be brought into disrepute”.
Examples included honourholders sentenced to more than three months in prison and if “the offence involved other disgraceful conduct such that public opinion would consider it wrong for the offender to hold a royal honour”.
Barrister Denise Ritchie, founder of the Stop Demand group, which aims to halt the sex trade by reducing those seeking it out, said the guilty plea made the process to remove the knighthood straightforward.
Ritchie — who referred to Brierley
as “Mr Brierley” — said the criteria had been met and the process to remove it should begin now.
“Young lives have been irreparably damaged as a result of this predator’s behaviour. This is an abhorrent trade in the rape and molestation of children that is fuelled by male demand. It should be denounced in the strongest terms.”
She said Brierley could resign his knighthood. “In such a case the Queen would be informed, with no further action needed.”
Brierley admitted three charges and 14 charges were withdrawn.
“My client admits he is in possession of some of the images,” his lawyer, Lisa-claire Hutchinson, told the Downing Centre Local Court, saying there was a dispute over the number of images on Brierley’s devices.
One charge to which Brierley admitted identified the offending material as including images of children ranging in age from 2 years to 15 years.
Brierley, 83, appeared in court with two lawyers and a security guard. He looked frail and walked with a cane for support.
The case was set down for a fresh hearing on April 30, although it was unclear if that was when sentencing would take place.
The three charges he admitted relate to child sex abuse material seized from devices Brierley had when stopped at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport in December 2019, and material found during a search of his waterfront Sydney mansion.
He was preparing to board a flight to Fiji when he was stopped by Australian border officers after a tip that August to New South Wales police.
Brierley has been on bail since his arrest, with the same conditions continuing after his guilty plea. He is allowed to walk nearby Double Bay and drive in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
Despite his offending, Brierley seems unlikely to be added to the hundreds of New Zealand-born Australian residents who have been deported here for crimes committed as a 501 as he has Australian citizenship.
He has enjoyed a towering role in Australasian business for decades. His rise began in the 1960s as he built a business buying into asset-rich companies that offered low return to shareholders.
By the 1980s, his business had extended to Australia, and then globally through the 1990s and onwards. In 1988, while chairman of the BNZ bank, his contribution to business and philanthropy led to a knighthood.
Wellington College is now severing ties with him after his guilty plea. The college old boy has given it significant amounts of money over the years.
Cricket Wellington has also confirmed it is reviewing his life membership of the sporting body. It clarified it had not received donations from Brierley since October 2017.