Skiffington’s estate continues to fight
Even with the two main characters now gone, the fallout continues from the fraud of Sir Nga¯ tata Love against the iwi property trust he once headed.
Love died on October 17, and a civil claim is continuing against the dwindling ‘‘insufficient’’ estate of the woman once described as his partner, Lorraine Skiffington, who died in September 2017.
Love served a jail term for fraud against the Wellington Tenths Trust, which he had chaired, although his family still say the result was an injustice.
Charges against Skiffington were stopped due to her ill-health, but in a civil case, the Wellington Tenths Trust went to the High Court at Wellington asking for judgment against her for $1,687,500.
The claim arose from a developer’s offer to pay $3 million for the right to lease trust land to develop in Thorndon. Other trustees said they were not told of the offer.
Associate Judge Warwick Smith decided Skiffington was liable to the trust for having dishonestly assisted Love, but there would have to be another hearing to decide how much it could recover.
In a decision yesterday, the Court of Appeal has given the executor of Skiffington’s estate, Hayden James Harley Skiffington, permission to appeal six working days past the normal time limit. Hayden Skiffington was described in court papers as being a student, of Hamilton. The Tenths Trust had opposed the extra appeal time. It said it and other creditors would be prejudiced because estate assets, which were said to be ‘‘already insufficient’’ would be further depleted by an unmeritorious appeal. It also said the intended appeal grounds included a legally untenable argument that amounted to a collateral attack on the criminal trial findings against Love.
The lawyer for Skiffington said the associate judge in the High Court had relied on findings from the criminal case that were not part of the offence for which Love was found guilty. It was denied that Lorraine Skiffington had given ‘‘dishonest assistance’’, and before her death she had made a statement saying she was misled by advisers who were found guilty of dishonesty.