Contracts signed and not read. Key documents thrown in the rubbish. JO-MARIE BROWN reports on a court case that went very wrong for the embattled Tainui iwi.
With the lush expanse of the Waikato before them, Tainui's leaders stood at the top of Hamilton's tallest building and dreamed of what would be the jewel in their crown.
The 15-storey Tower building was for sale in May 1998, and the idea of people driving into Hamilton and seeing Tainui's headquarters standing head and shoulders above everything else appealed enormously.
Someone suggested that Sir Robert Mahuta, Tainui's principal negotiator, could have an office up top, while other tribal leaders dreamed of which floors they would occupy.
The fact that they could not possibly fill the empty office space was of little concern. Once tribal companies had been comfortably installed, other advisers such as Auckland-based law firm Rudd Watts and Stone would be persuaded to lease space if they wanted to retain Tainui's business.
But the Tower building would not come cheap.
It was to be sold as part of a package of five Hamilton business district buildings sitting on Tainui-owned land. Having been bought by a young property developer, Blair Kirk, for $11.81 million, they were being offered to the tribe for $24 million.
Anxious to get their hands on the Tower building, tribal leaders told Tainui Corporation's up-and-coming chief executive, Craig Beecroft, to stitch the deal up.
But in doing so, Mr Beecroft inadvertently stitched up both himself and Mr Kirk when Tainui accused the pair of trying to rip the iwi off.
After a tense three-month trial in the Auckland District Court, a jury yesterday acquitted both men on two charges of fraud.
The relief was obvious, with Mr Beecroft giving a small smile before breaking down in tears.
But the verdict brings little joy to Tainui, whose financial woes and in-fighting are already legendary.
Evidence during the trial revealed that crucial information was thrown in the rubbish bin, people who despised Mr Beecroft ignored what he said, and Tainui leaders - who later claimed they were duped - signed an agreement to buy the buildings without even reading it.
Craig Beecroft, now aged 29, and Blair Kirk, 30, met on their first day at Waikato University and both graduated with commerce degrees.
After moving home to Whangarei in 1995, Mr Beecroft went to work as an analyst for an Auckland investment banker which Tainui hired to assess the value of the land it received in its $170 million Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown.
Mr Beecroft, a Pakeha, gained a reputation as a hard worker committed to Tainui's affairs and was appointed chief executive officer of Tainui Corporation in July 1997.
Mr Kirk, also a Pakeha, became involved with Tainui through his job as a mobile manager for Countrywide Bank and helped Mr Beecroft set up Tainui accounts with his bank.
The pair were in touch daily, but Mr Beecroft says he remained unaware that Mr Kirk was behind the company trying to on-sell the Hamilton properties to Tainui in 1998.
Tainui's special project manager, Jeff Green, a basketball coach with no formal accounting or management qualifications, had asked Mr Beecroft to investigate the buildings. He did so, and repeatedly warned Mr Green that the $24 million pricetag was far in excess of their worth.
But determined to have the prominent Tower building for their headquarters, tribal leaders including Sir Robert single-mindedly drove the proposal through.
"The stupidity of Tainui is coming back to haunt me," an outraged Mr Beecroft later told the Serious Fraud Office. "I'm the ... person for two years that said to these guys, 'You're idiots spending your money on stuff like this'."
Mr Green, who was Sir Robert's right-hand man, would later admit that Mr Beecroft told him the buildings were worth only $10 million to $12 million. But he cannot recall what he did with the paperwork.
In fact, most of the faxes and information Mr Beecroft gave him on the proposal were thrown in the bin.
Mr Green admitted that the mail and fax systems at Tainui's Hopuhopu headquarters were "a real shambles," with data routinely lost.
But even when Mr Beecroft presented information face to face, his advice was ignored.
At a meeting of the finance committee in May 1998, he made a half-hour presentation on the deal.
But Mr Green, whom Mr Beecroft once accused of being a highly paid consultant out to get Tainui's money, "despised" the young chief executive and paid no attention to what he was saying.
Other tribal elders at the meeting appear not to have listened either.
Thomas Moke, who had 17 years' corporate management experience, cannot remember if he was told what the price was and does not recall Mr Beecroft saying it would be difficult to find tenants for the Tower building - a point that was recorded in the finance committee's minutes.
Any concerns raised at the meeting were quickly silenced by the "autocratic" Sir Robert, who wanted the transaction to go ahead.
When Mr Moke asked Mr Beecroft whether he had thoroughly checked out all five buildings, Sir Robert told him to shut up.
"Sir Robert was viewed by the tribe since he was a baby as being the chosen one," Mr Moke said. "The tribe put its entire trust in him and he was treated with utmost respect."
In fact, Sir Robert's tribal authority always took precedence over commercial matters, and Mr Moke estimates that $70 million of transactions were pushed through on the chosen one's say-so between 1995 and 1999.
This transaction was no different, with the committee unanimously deciding to buy the buildings once Sir Robert, who did not testify at the trial, had made his view clear.
What happened next formed the basis of the crown case against Mr Beecroft, but it was so astonishing that three Tainui elders were left red-faced and feeling as if they were on trial when cross-examined by the defence.
Mr Moke, along with fellow Tainui Maori Trust Board members Fred Kaa and Umu McLean, had sole authority to sign legal documents on behalf of the board.
But when Mr Beecroft approached them after the finance committee meeting to sign the sale and purchase agreements, none of the three bothered to read what they were signing. They later claimed that Mr Beecroft had tricked them into the purchase by not making it clear what the documents actually were.
The bold heading at the top of the first page saying, "Agreement for Sale and Purchase of Real Estate," apparently went unnoticed, along with the legal warning immediately above where the men signed saying it was a binding contract.
Mr Beecroft's lawyer, Paul Davison, QC, was astounded by claims that they signed unwittingly and he got Mr McLean to admit that he did know what he was doing.
"You knew full well that it was a contract for Tainui to buy these buildings ... didn't you?"
"Yes," said a defeated Mr McLean.
Mr Davison: Are you the sort of person that goes around signing contracts without looking at them?
Mr McLean: No.
Mr Moke, on the other hand, tried to explain his signature by saying Sir Robert and Tainui's respected legal adviser, Shane Solomon, told him to sign. He claimed that Sir Robert said the documents were urgent and not to worry because the full Tainui Maori Trust Board would ratify the deal the following week.
Still concerned, Mr Moke said, he asked Mr Solomon for advice and was told that if "the boss" wanted it signed, he should sign.
The third signatory, Mr Kaa, added his name once he saw the other two had signed.
Satisfied that he was securing the buildings for Tainui (which the finance committee had just asked him to do), Mr Beecroft proceeded to have the documents sealed and witnessed.
The deal was almost done, but getting a deposit out of the tribe proved difficult. So, anxious not to have the deal fall over, Mr Beecroft arranged for a $500,000 cheque to be drawn from Tainui Corporation funds as part-payment of the $1.8 million deposit required.
The prosecution would later claim that Mr Beecroft paid the cheque to try to trap Tainui in the unconditional contract.
Further weight was added to the allegation by the fact that Mr Beecroft began cleaning out his Newmarket office in the first week of June, when the cheque was drawn.
The prosecution implied that he was getting ready to flee, but Mr Beecroft said he was just sick of his job and had all but decided to quit.
In the end it did not matter - he was fired on Friday, June 5.
The realisation that $9 million of treaty claim settlement properties would be sold below value to help to finance the purchase - something which Mr Beecroft had made clear - did not go down well with the likes of Sir Robert and others, who began scrambling to get out of the deal, which never went ahead.
It was only after Mr Beecroft rang Mr Kirk to tell him he had been sacked that his friend owned up to being involved in the property deal.
"I was absolutely mindblown. I just couldn't believe it [but] in the property market in New Zealand there's only a certain number of players working away ... It was certainly well known that Tainui had bucketloads of cash and wasn't scared of spending it," Mr Beecroft said.
Now Mr Beecroft and Mr Kirk have finally been cleared.
Mr Beecroft, who is engaged and has a 23-month-old son, works as a systems administrator, while Mr Kirk intends taking a long holiday before deciding where to go from here.
Tainui, on the other hand, has found itself in constant strife.
Since 1998, Mr Green, Mr Moke and Mr Solomon have all resigned, and the Tower building remains a jewel out of the iwi's reach.
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