11 December 2012

Matrimonial: R. v. Kendall


Auckland businessman and former firefighter, Graeme John Kendall, was sentenced to home detention for perjury after giving false evidence in what was described as a deliberate mis-use of the legal system to inflict considerable harm on his former wife.
The High Court was told that Kendall lived for twelve months in a de facto relationship before marrying his de facto partner in March 2006.  The marriage was at an end within nine months.
Prior to the marriage, his de facto partner decided to buy a residential unit in Takapuna which adjoined a unit she already owned.  He suggested she use one of his many private companies for the purchase.  All the shares in Home Pride Ltd were transferred into her name and this company purchased the unit.  She was assured, as was her solicitor, that Home Pride was a “clean company”: a shell company with no assets and no liabilities.
Within months of the marriage ending, she received a statutory demand claiming that Home Pride owed $64,400 for rent due on a storage unit in Rosebank Road, Avondale.  This was a storage unit where some of her personal property had been stored previously.  If payment was not made it was likely that Home Pride would be wound up by the court and the Takapuna residential unit sold to pay the claimed debt.
She spent $33,000 in legal fees disputing the debt; a debt claimed by one of her former husband’s companies.
It was proved that Kendall had fabricated lease documents to make it appear that Home Pride owed rent for the storage unit.  He was convicted of perjury.  He served three months imprisonment before being convicted again on the same charge following a retrial.  Justice Toogood took this earlier period of imprisonment into account when sentencing him to seven month’s home detention for perjury.  Kendall was also ordered to pay $25,000 to his former wife.
R. v. Kendall – High Court (11.12.12)
12.034