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SYDNEY - Disgraced corporate high-flyer Ray Williams said he was heading home to be with family after being released from Sydney's Silverwater jail yesterday.
Williams, 71, walked free from the western Sydney correctional complex after serving just under three years for his role in Australia's largest corporate collapse.
The founder of former insurance giant HIH served the minimum two years and nine months non-parole period of a four-year, six-month prison sentence imposed in 2005.
Thousands of people lost their home or life savings when HIH collapsed in 2001 with debts of A$5.3 billion ($6 billion).
Williams pleaded guilty to making misleading statements about the company's financial position.
Wearing beige trousers and a light blue shirt, and carrying an orange envelope which contained the details of his parole conditions, he was met outside the prison grounds by a man believed to be his son.
The pair embraced before getting into a dark-blue Ford Falcon sedan, and Williams spoke briefly with a throng of waiting journalists through the passenger window of the car.
Asked if he had any comment for people who had lost their life savings through the HIH collapse, he said: "No, all I would like you to understand is that the last thing in the world I would have wanted was for HIH to fail, for people to be hurt and for people to suffer financial loss.
"And I really am very sorry that occurred.
"If I could just leave it at that I really would like to get home and spend some time with my family, who have been so wonderfully supportive, as have our friends and ever so many of the HIH staff."
Journalists who had waited for him outside the prison believed he had been taken to his wife's double-storey multimillion-dollar home at Seaforth, on Sydney's north shore.
But later, the dark-blue Ford was parked in the driveway of a house in an adjacent street, believed to be the home of another family member. The more modest single-storey brick dwelling appears to share a rear boundary with the home of Williams' wife. There was no sign of anyone being home at either residence yesterday.
Williams transferred much of his personal fortune into his wife's account before his conviction.
Victims of the HIH collapse said yesterday that Williams' sentence had been too lenient, and that he should not have been permitted to transfer his assets.
A woman who gave her name as Veronica said she had lost A$400,000 ($459,982) retirement savings in the HIH collapse.
She said she knew of many people who had been left much worse off.
"I still get so depressed about this," Veronica told Fairfax Radio Network.
"They [former HIH directors] have no conscience. The laws should be changed so that all their assets could have been seized."
Williams, who began his sentence at the Cessnock correctional centre, near Newcastle, was moved to Silverwater after an alleged extortion attempt by another prisoner.
He will remain on parole until October next year.
VICTIMS FIND IT HARD TO FORGIVE AND FORGET
SYDNEY - Victims of the HIH collapse say they continue to suffer as the insurer's former chairman settles into a comfortable home life following his release from Sydney's Silverwater jail.
Greg Whitbourne said he was among many home owners who could not forgive and forget after losing huge amounts of income, and in many cases properties, through building delays which followed the HIH collapse.
"Quite a lot of people who lost their houses through the default of HIH probably won't have the same opportunity [as Ray Williams]," Whitbourne said. "It doesn't seem fair because his retirement is assured and it's certainly not the case for a lot of the victims of the collapse."
A woman who gave her name as Veronica said she had lost A$400,000 ($455,000) retirement savings in the HIH collapse. She said the sentence had been too lenient.
"I still get so depressed about this," Veronica said. "They [former HIH directors] have no conscience." She said the laws covering corporate collapses should be changed to enable authorities to seize the assets of culpable directors.
A neighbour of the Williams family, who identified himself as John, said his parents lost A$40,000 in the collapse and that he felt "sick" at news of Williams' release from prison.
"People lost their homes, my parents lost money, and he's got money squirrelled away everywhere and it makes me sick," John said outside one of several of Williams' homes in the Seaforth street.
Australian Shareholders Association spokesman Stephen Matthews said Williams should be allowed to get on with his life. Acting NSW Premier John Watkins said Williams had paid for his crimes.
- AAP
