Senior
Mighty River Power manager Paul Kenneth Rose was sentenced to three years two
months jail for defrauding his employer and former wife Jane Clare Rose was sentenced
to nine months home detention for her complicity in the fraud.
Mighty River suffered minimal financial
losses when Rose together with his spouse diverted company purchase orders
through a dummy company they set up, but his actions were in direct breach of
his employment contract which required disclosure of any conflicts of interest.
The High Court was told Mr Rose had been
a long-standing and trusted senior employee at Mighty River with primary
responsibilities for the company’s Southdown power plant in South Auckland. Back in 2006, there were instances of Rose
putting Mighty River purchase orders through a company run by his then partner,
without disclosing the family link. To
further hide direct involvement, he later invited his mother to become a
director. Then from 2010, a series of
Mighty River purchases were routed through Aero Automation Ltd a dummy company
set up as an intermediary for sourcing electrical parts and services required
for Mighty River Power. His new wife
Jane Rose was sole shareholder and director.
She provided day-to-day administration, drawing salaries totalling
$339,000 over a three year period. An
alias was used to disguise her involvement in company activities and to
distance Mr Rose from the connection.
Payments totalling some $1.8 million were processed through the
company. There was evidence of services
ordered for Mighty River by Mr Rose through Aero Automation being performed
personally by him signing in for the work under an assumed name.
Mighty River said it spent $203,000
investigating the fraud. In total,
Mighty River probably suffered minimal losses of some $60,000, Justice Edwards
said. There was no clear evidence, reaching
the criminal standard of proof, of mark-ups imposed by Aero Automation on all
its invoices being in excess of what independent third-party intermediaries might
have charged. In addition, Aero
Automation was left out of pocket for parts valued at $143,000 supplied but
unpaid when the fraud was exposed.
A pre-sentence report described Mr Rose
as having a deep sense of entitlement and limited insight into his
offending. The fraud involved an abuse
of trust and was premeditated and repetitive, Justice Edwards said. Mrs Rose was described as being genuinely
remorseful once the fraud was uncovered.
R.
v. Rose – High Court (25.05.16)
16.088