Women duped by fraudster

A romantic attachment to recidivist fraudster Stephen Gubb ended badly for two women.

The first was his Auckland wife Helen, who was 13 years his junior and the mother of their two young children when she was jailed in 2003.

On Monday, in the Christchurch District Court, his more recent wife, Shirley Anne Johnston, 66, admitted her part in Stephen Gubb’s most recent fraud. She pleaded guilty to getting $150,000 of commissions in a fraudulent scheme cooked up by Gubb.

Johnston was a real estate agent for Phoenix Real Estate (Phoenix Harcourts) in Christchurch when Gubb was a property consultant for Hughes Developments which supervised the Izone Industrial Park project in Rolleston for the Selwyn District Council.

Between 2007 and 2015 he was paid a salary to sell land and other packages in the development. Real estate agents who introduced buyers earned a commission.

Gubb sold land himself but he and Johnston pretended she had organised 13 deals and therefore was entitled to commissions on each one.

Her firm was paid about

$300,000 of which about $150,000 was paid to Johnston. Harcourts has repaid the full $300,000 to the Selwyn District Council.

Johnston, who lives in Wanaka, will be sentenced on September 20. Judge David Saunders asked for a report on her suitability for home detention.

In March this year, Gubb was jailed for two years and nine months for his role in the Izone fraud.

His Auckland offending, in which his wife, Helen, was embroiled, involved 100 unauthorised withdrawals from the accounts of apartment and property companies.

The Serious Fraud Office said ‘‘the actual loss figure’’ for Stephen Gubb’s offending was

$855,000 while the loss figure for Helen Gubb was $145,000.

The couple generated false accounts and bank statements to conceal their offending.

At the time the couple owned a substantial rural property.

Helen claimed she had been subjected to ‘‘psychological abuse’’.