Whangārei physio found guilty on three fraud charges

Whangārei physiotherapist Skye Renes has been found not guilty on a majority of charges relating to defrauding the ACC. Photo/John Stone

The Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand will decide the professional future of a Northland physiotherapist found guilty on three charges relating to defrauding the Accident Compensation Corporation.

Guilty verdicts against Skye Renes were returned by a jury in the Whangārei District Court on two charges of obtaining by deception and one of dishonestly using a document for pecuniary advantage.

Not guilty verdicts were returned on 20 charges of obtaining by deception while there was hung jury on six charges.

The court will allocate a callover date when a date for a re-trial is expected to be set on the six undetermined charges.

After a three-week trial, the jury retired about 3.30pm on Thursday last week and delivered their verdicts about 3.15pm on Monday.A spokeswoman for the Physiotherapy Board of NZ said it was awaiting a formal notification of the verdicts from the court registrar before considering what action to take against Renes.

The 29 charges Renes, owner of Fizeo Works Physiotherapy in Raumanga, faced related to the time period between 2011 and 2016.

The trial heard evidence from witnesses working for ACC and physiotherapists and a large number of documents were tendered as exhibits.

At the conclusion of the Crown case, Renes, 39, chose to give evidence and called one defence witness.

The Crown case at trial was that Renes' actions were a deliberate course of conduct aimed at dishonestly obtaining money from ACC.

Among the list of people who provided treatment that was subsequently paid for by ACC included physiotherapist assistants whose services were ineligible for payment through the government agency as they were unqualified, the Crown argued.

Renes blamed poor computer systems used to file information that were designed "on the fly" which became more difficult to follow over time.

She said treatments were provided and that there was an entitlement to be paid for that work. Renes is on bail and will be sentenced on February 17 next year.