Blue Chip boss sentenced - but avoids jail

Mark Bryers was declared bankrupt last year. Photo / Jason Dorday

Angry Blue Chip investors wanted Mark Bryers behind bars, instead the director of the failed investment company will do 75 hours of community work and pay a fine of $37,500, plus court costs.

About 30 investors crammed a small court room where there was standing room only.

At least five police officers were outside court, while another two stood next to Bryers in the dock and two security staff in front of the public gallery.

Judge Chris Field told the court he had received 100 letters from investors, some of whom told him they had witnessed relationship break-ups, bad health and had lost their homes.

"The volume of material now approaches a telephone directory," he said.

Bryers had previously pleaded guilty to 34 charges relating to book-keeping and record-keeping failures, as well as failing to attend a creditors' meeting.

Blue Chip collapsed in 2008, owing around 3,000 investors more than $80 million.

Outside court, Tony Collingwood said he wanted to see Bryers go to jail.

"It's not good enough, $37,000 to him is just meal money," Mr Collingwood said.

He said he had lost his home and $150,000 - much more than Bryers had been fined.

"Community service? He needed to go to jail," Mr Collingwood said.

His comments were backed up by Ngaire Williams from Tauranga who had been picked up by her daughter Karina and driven to Auckland to witness the sentencing.

She said she and her 85 year-old husband had serious health problems after the stress of losing their money in a Blue Chip apartment venture on Auckland's Waverley St.

"They never built the apartment in Waverley St. It's still a carpark," Mrs Williams said.

"Of course we were preyed on. We were targeted," she said.

She said Bryers should "pay the price" and go to prison.

Asked about the police officers in court, Mrs Williams said: "I wondered why they needed so many cops to look after a herd of old people. Did they think we were going to attack him with our walking sticks?"

Inside court Judge Field told Bryers he had "failed utterly in your objectives as a company director".

Earlier, Ministry of Economic Development lawyer Mark Woolford said the Crown would seek a sentencing starting point of a fine of $70,000 and 100 hours of community service.

Mr Woolford said he wanted to make it clear that the charges were not fraud charges.

"We cannot place any link between charges that Bryers has pleaded guilty to and Blue Chip."

He said despite Bryers' bankruptcy, a fine was still appropriate.

Mr Woolford also told the court the Ministry agreed Bryers' sentence should be discounted by 20 per cent for his early guilty plea, which drew muttering from the public gallery.

However, Bryers' lawyer Aaron Lloyd argued that the starting point for the fine should be $55,000.

He opposed a community service sentence, saying it would be unfair and unjust because Bryers was no longer living in New Zealand and could mean he would lose his job in Australia.

"His failings have been public failings and he has definitely lost a lot," he said.

Judge Field acknowledged that it would be "inconvenient" for Bryers to serve a community work sentence but said Bryers had a debt to repay society.

Judge Field said he noted Bryers had a job in Sydney and would be able to pay the fine.

A report from probation said Bryers earned between $10,000 and $12,000 as a consultant for Sydney-based Northern Crest Investments Ltd (formerly Blue Chip Financial Solutions).

Bryers heckled as he entered court

Bryers was heckled by out-of-pocket investors as he walked into court for sentencing this afternoon.

Dozens of aggrieved investors shouted "scum," "low life" and "thief". One said he wished he had taken eggs to throw.

Tauranga investors were among those headed to Auckland to attend today's sentencing.

Spokeswoman Suzanne Edmonds said the investors sent 200 pages of victim impact reports to the court.

"Reading the impact statements as they have come in has only hardened our resolve to see this country deliver some justice to the victims," she said.

She said Bryers, who was was declared bankrupt in October, was "living a handsome and apparently luxurious life" in the Rocks area of central Sydney.