Corrupt mastermind or duped friend?

A criminal plan to secure a plush beachfront home with his new partner? Or a 78-year-old man duped by people he trusted? reports from Sir Ngatata Love’s fraud trial.

In summing up the fraud trial of Sir Ngatata Love, once one of the most powerful figures in Maoridom, Crown and defence lawyers gave Justice Graham Lang practically opposite portrayals of the 78-year-old defendant.

The accusation is simple. As chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust, Love seized control of a multi-million dollar payment from an Auckland developer. Money rightfully belonging to the trust’s thousands of Maori beneficiaries instead went to pay down a mortgage on a beachfront home he recently bought with his new partner.

The Crown says this was a bribe that Love took steps to hide. Both sides accept that Love’s position was abused, but disagree by who.

His defence does not dispute that payment was made, but presents Love as a lifelong servant to his people, oblivious to the money trail. The few documents tied to him were simply signed without question, he said. ‘‘I trusted lawyers,’’ Love said in the witness box. The money may have ended reducing a mortgage, but whatever bank and property records suggest, it was not his home.

Instead he was a tenant, in a house with Lorraine Skiffington, who he had helped buy the house as a temporary favour. Whatever anyone thought, they were just friends. The relationship was ‘‘spiritual’’ not ‘‘sexual’’, living at different ends of the house.

While generally low profile, Love’s influence was immense at the time. The son of Te Ati Awa leader Sir Ralph Love, part-time study led to a PhD and eventually, he became a Professor at Victoria University of Wellington. As well as serving as a trustee for decades on the Tenths Trust, he is a former chief executive of Te Puni Kokiri and was a director of Air New Zealand, NZ Post and KiwiBank.

But when the Serious Fraud Office charged him in 2013, it alleged corruption in several transactions.

One, linked to the building which is now home to New Zealand’s spy agencies, finally made it to trial on August 3. This despite Skiffington - who everyone agrees claimed to represent Love - being granted a stay of prosecution due to ill health.

The Crown’s case - which Justice Lang has not yet ruled on - is essentially this: in March 2006 property developer Redwood paid $150,000 to Matene Love (Sir Ngatata’s son, who pleaded guilty to accepting a secret commission in relation to the payment), in return for a pledge that the Tenths would not approach anyone else about developing land at 1-15 Pipitea St in Wellington.

A short walk from Parliament at a time of rapid public sector expansion, it was a prime opportunity, and Redwood indicated a payment of more than $1m could follow if the deal progressed.

At this point Sir Ngatata arranged for Skiffington to replace Matene as his go-between with developers.

In October 2006, Love is advised that the upfront payment could be as much as $4m, a figure he demands from Redwood. But when Redwood counterproposes $3m, a crucial change takes place.

Lawyers from Gault Mitchell, claiming to represent Pipitea Street Developments Limited (PSDL), write to Redwood instructing the developer to pay that company - not the Tenths Trust - the upfront sum. PSDL had been incorporated that day, with Skiffington and Shaan Stevens - a now disgraced accountant and key witness against Love - as directors.

Kerry Knight, from Redwood’s funders Equinox, replies to the demand that he had spoken to Love and the two had ‘‘tentatively agreed’’ to commercial terms - a $3m upfront payment to PSDL, with discounted rent for five years from the Tenths.

When Love presents progress on the development to the Tenths’ trustees days later on November 28, key aspects are omitted. Redwood would pay the Tenths development costs, through a consultancy company. But he doesn’t mention the $3m payment, PSDL or Skiffington. Nor does he mention these aspects later.

According to the Crown, on December 22, two documents are signed, at the same location with the same witness. One sees Love grant a lease to Redwood for Pipitea St. The other is a services agreement between Skiffington and Redwood, which will see the developer pay her company $1.5m within seven days of the lease being signed and another $1.5m later.

In January, the $1.5m, plus GST, is transferred into the accounts of PSDL. It is immediately transferred into accounts Love and Skiffington control, to pay down the mortgage on a house they had bought weeks earlier.

The purchase, the Crown claims, bears the hallmarks of a couple who knew money was coming. On November 6 they visited the Moana Rd house, and within days had agreed to pay $1.8m for it. Westpac was willing to lend 100 per cent finance, an account in Love’s name paid a $90,000 deposit. By early December they jointly owned it, enjoying the fruit of a criminal payment for almost a decade.

But Love’s lawyer Colin Carruthers says the Crown’s theory is wrong for a number of reasons. While Stevens and Skiffington routinely claimed to be acting at Love’s request, there is very little evidence of Love’s involvement. Carruthers claimed Stevens’ evidence about his level of involvement was ‘‘a baldfaced lie’’, while Skiffington ‘‘used’’ Love.

He claims Love was aware Stevens and Skiffington had a consultancy contract with Redwood, but it was none of his business how much they were paid. The pair’s claim to represent him was simply wrong. Furthermore, rather than the trust being deceived, he signed a deal giving them exactly what they were presented with: a development with no risk to the trust.

In any case, he made no gain. The house was always intended to be Skiffington’s, with documents showing he had taken steps to remove himself from a position of joint ownership.

The Crown claims given that Love was at the initial meetings about an up front multi-million payment, it was ‘‘incredible’’ that he would then abandon the negotiations and never ask what became of them. The Crown maintains that Skiffington was acting under her partner’s instructions.

Crown prosecutor Grant Burston said there was also an ‘‘alternative theory’’ to Love’s move’s to get off the ownership papers: it was an attempt to distance himself from the payment.

Burston pointed to the fact that Love’s lawyer Ian Hay wrote to Westpac to try to remove the defendant from the mortgage documents on August 15, 2012. That was four days after The Dominion Post revealed the payments, linking Love to an alleged fraud.

It was one day after a document destruction company was called to the Moana Rd property to pick up three bins of papers to be shredded. In one was a draft of Skiffington’s Redwood agreement - which Love denies all knowledge of - marked ‘‘Ngatata’s working copy’’.