Cops seize millions in assets over workplace death
Law aimed at proceeds of crime being used in health and safety case
Aworkplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of health and safety breaches.
The case is set for the High Court at Auckland next Wednesday and Ron Salter — who served home detention after the 2015 death — said he and wife Natalie stand to lose everything they have worked for over 38 years.
It is a first for legislation usually associated with gangs and the drugs trade. High Court documents show police have used the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to legally restrain their family home in Auckland, along with family trusts, the family bach and waste fuel collection business Salters Cartage Ltd.
At risk are properties worth $8,125,000, according to government valuation, and the Salters’ waste fuel recovery and recycling business that could triple the value of the restrained assets.
It follows the 2015 death of Jamey Lee Bowring at the Salters Cartage Ltd yard in Wiri, South Auckland.
Bowring was welding on a 100,000-litre fuel tank when it exploded, throwing him about 100m.
Bowring’s mother, Sarah Ferguson, said she was limited in what she could say because the case was heading to court.
However, she said: “It doesn’t surprise me that this is happening due to how illegally he was running his operation.”
In November 2017, Salter and his company pleaded guilty to six health and safety charges and six charges under the hazardous substances laws. He was sentenced to 41⁄2 months home detention and personally fined $25,000. His company was fined $258,750. Salter and the company were ordered to pay reparations of $128,000.
“I thought we were done. I’d done my time, paid the fines. I thought I’d done everything and it was all over.”
Salter said he had understood the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to be aimed at the drug trade.
“I always thought the proceeds of crime was related to drugs and that you couldn’t prove how you bought your house or your motorbike or flash cars. It was never envisaged for this, to my knowledge.
“We stand to lose our house here, our children’s house down the road . . . our bach which we’ve had for 17 years over in Waiheke, plus the whole Salters operation. A lifetime of work. We stand to lose everything that we have worked for, for 38 years.”
Salter started the business in the early 1980s with one truck and grew it to a business with 25 staff and up to 25 trucks collecting waste fuel north of Taupo¯. The company was involved in recovery operations from the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 through to the ruptured Marsden Point-toAuckland fuel pipeline in 2017.
He said Bowring’s death and the prosecution that followed had weighed heavily on his family.
“It devastated us. It devastated their family as well.
“But there has to be a time when it is finished. I know it will never be finished for their family and I don’t think it will ever be finished for us as well.”
Natalie Salter said Bowring’s death had a clear impact on her husband.
“Ron was fairly broken about the whole business and I don’t really think he’s come right since. It’s certainly had a big impact, on the family, on the company, on everything.”
Barrister Ron Mansfield, representing the Salters, said it was a test case and police were trying to use the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act in a way Parliament didn’t intend when the law was passed in 2009.
“It is being used to attack businesses and their owners for offences that can inadvertently be committed during the course of a legitimate business.”
Mansfield said Salter and his company had changed business practices, were remorseful, had pleaded guilty, paid the fine and compensation.
“This new development, if condoned by the courts, will clearly have an impact on business certainty and compliance costs.
“All businesses should be concerned by what is intended here as they all will be exposed to this form of action if they were to commit a similar offence, of which there are over 70 every year in New Zealand.”
Detective Inspector Craig Hamilton, national manager of the financial crime unit, confirmed it was the first case linked to health and safety offending. He said it was an ongoing investigation that “may broaden”.
He said police had taken on criminal proceeds cases from other agencies, including fraud.
Asked how the law extended to health and safety, he said: “The Act has a purpose of stopping people from profiting from crime and to deter those from undertaking criminal activity.