Matisse money lost say angry grandparents

Waipukurau's Kathie and John Hands want answers from the man they trusted with their money, funds they had set aside to help their granddaughter's organ-transplant campaign in the US.
The couple invested $250,000 into Waipawa Holdings in September 2005 and had received regular letters from the company's director, Warren Pickett, tracking the fund's growth.
This year they were told their investment had reached $312,000, thanks to the 10 per cent interest it was earning.
This week they said they were devastated to learn Waipawa Holdings had been put into voluntary liquidation.
Mr Hands said he phoned Waipawa Holdings last week, worried about the recent collapse of finance companies around New Zealand, but was given assurances by Mr Pickett his money was safe.
"He said 'no problem, if you want to withdraw your money, no problem'. He was that convincing, that was last Wednesday [July 30]," Mr Hands said.
Mr Pickett was a well-known accountant in Central Hawke's Bay and regarded as a "trusted man", a Justice of the Peace who had worked in the rural community for 35 years. Mr Hands said he had known Mr Pickett since the 1970s and had invested his money with Waipawa Holdings based on Mr Pickett's respected character "more than anything else".
Mr Hands said he was told by Mr Pickett that Waipawa Holdings was a property-investment company but he believed the money had not gone into properties and hoped the Serious Fraud Office's investigation would reveal more.
Angry and upset, Mr Hands yesterday had the job of phoning his daughter Jodee in the US to tell her he no longer had the money to help with granddaughter Matisse's transplant recovery.
He said the money he and his wife had invested for Matisse was from their own pockets and not that raised by community efforts over the last two years.
"He [Mr Pickett] would have known about Matisse, that money was for her and now it's gone, that's why we are angry," Mr Hands said.
He said he believed hundreds of people could be effected by the collapse of the two companies.
Around town, he had heard that up to $20 million had been lost.