Watson gets time off for Covid in sentence for contempt
AUCKLAND: Former richlister Eric Watson will spend less time behind bars after testing positive for Covid19, a London judge has ruled.
The High Court in England and Wales earlier this month found Watson in contempt of court for withholding information about his assets in the longrunning legal battle with Kiwi philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn and his company Kea Investments.
He was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment by Lord Justice Christopher Nugee this week.
In his sentencing judgement, now released publicly, Justice Nugee said he was ‘‘satisfied that this was a serious contempt, deliberate and contumacious’’ and designed to conceal an asset from Kea it was entitled to know about.
However, the judge did award Watson, who formerly owned the Warriors rugby league club with Mr Glenn, some discounts for personal factors, including testing positive for Covid19 and his relationship with his partner and children.
‘‘The Covid pandemic has made the holding of these hearings more difficult,’’ Justice Nugee said.
‘‘Your personal circumstances, including the fact that, as I have seen, you have tested positive for Covid, have made them doubly difficult, and I accept that you have not sought to run away from this case but to stand up and face it, nor have you sought to put it off when the time came for it to be finally listed.’’
A large part of the time and complexity of the proceeding was also attributable to the complexity of Watson’s financial affairs, the judge added, but he accepted the circumstances had been ‘‘a very difficult, stressful experience’’ and a form of punishment.
Despite this, Justice Nugee held the view a custodial sentence was necessary.
‘‘But I am willing to reduce the sentence from what it would otherwise have been to make it as short as possible. Had it not been for those matters of personal mitigation, I would have sentenced you to a period of six months or more,’’ he said.
‘‘As it is, I am reducing the period to a sentence of four months, balancing the seriousness of the conduct I have found with the consequences for you and your family.’’
Watson asked the judge to stay his prison sentence pending an appeal, for which he has 21 days.
But Justice Nugee declined the bid and said: ‘‘I do not think that there is a real prospect of the Court of Appeal allowing an appeal, given the findings of fact which I made and the construction of the order which I adopted. I may, of course, prove to be wrong . . .’’
Watson will be a guest of Her Majesty at Pentonville Prison in London.
After a lengthy trial, Watson was declared liable in 2018 for £43.5 million ($NZ85 million) and interest compounding at 6.5% per annum in compensation to Kea. He was ordered to pay an interim sum of £25 million plus costs of £3.8 million.
Watson, who developed a reputation in the ’90s and early 2000s as a playboy dating lingerie models, appealed the ruling. However, it was dismissed by the UK’s Court of Appeal in October 2019.
Kea then accused Watson of being ‘‘deliberately reticent’’ over providing information about his assets as part of a strategy to frustrate compensation recovery efforts.
It sought three orders of contempt against Watson, which were argued over several days in April and May, over suspicions about interests, including those held by his mother, Joan Pollock, and a house bought in Sweden with his partner, Lisa Henrekson.
‘‘I have found that you have committed a contempt of court in deliberately not disclosing the existence of, and providing the bank statements for, the Rainy Day account in your mother’s name, which, as I have found, you knew was money that was at your disposal,’’ Justice Nugee told Watson at his sentencing.
Watson, formerly one of New Zealand’s wealthiest men, now claims to be impecunious and said in a court statement the ‘‘small amount I spend on living is given to me by my mother’’.
However, an analysis of his bank statements for September 2018 to September 2019 showed more than £500,000 coming into his account, much of it from what was described as a ‘‘Rainy Day’’ account.
Had Watson disclosed that account to Kea, there would have been some $NZ400,000 left.
‘‘His failure to do that meant that Kea lost the opportunity to take steps to secure it towards its judgement,’’ Justice Nugee said.
In his contempt judgement, the judge said Watson had ‘‘not voluntarily paid a penny’’ of what he was ordered to and Kea was ‘‘still owed the vast majority of it’’. — The New Zealand Herald