National Finance boss gets six years jail

Former National Finance boss Allan Ludlow. Photo / Supplied

The former boss of failed car finance company National Finance has been sentenced to six years in jail for his part in a $3.5 million fraud.

Trevor Allan Ludlow was convicted of seven charges relating to a theft as a person in a special relationship and false accounting in July.

Ludlow was found to have breached the terms of the trust deed under which National Finance operated, defrauding investors of an estimated $3.5 million.

This included about $2.7 million of unauthorised or unsecured advances made to his Payless Car group of companies, undisclosed related party transactions totaling more $800,000 to an audio company; a property in Fiji, and land purchased for another company he owned.

Ludlow represented himself at the Serious Fraud Office trial in July, a process he has described as "absolutely exhausting".

National Finance, whose core business was car finance, was placed in receivership in May 2006, with investors owed $21 million.

Ludlow's co-accused former National Finance accountant John Gray pleaded guilty to theft and false accounting charges in the Auckland District Court last year and was sentenced to nine months' home detention.

"Concluding the investigations and prosecutions of failed finance companies has been our number one priority over the past 18 months, and this sentence reflects both the seriousness and importance of this work." said SFO chief executive Adam Feeley in a press release just issued.

Feeley said one of SFO's primary objectives was to focus on cases which would make a difference to restoring investor confidence.

"Kiwi investors understand that criminal proceedings cannot restore the losses they have suffered, but equally we believe that they will take some confidence in knowing that those who have so fundamentally breached investor trust can and will be held to account."

After considering a complaint received from the Receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the SFO determined that an investigation into the affairs the National Finance 2000 Limited may disclose serious or complex fraud.