Bankrupt builder who stole $60k from charity theatre group censured by Building Practitioner’s Board

A builder who used his child’s bank account to steal $60,000 from an amateur theatre troupe says he “deeply regrets” his actions.

Nicholas Greer was sentenced to nine-and-a-half-months’ home detention in October last year for systematically defrauding the Shoreside Theatre in Milford where he used to help build set pieces and then volunteered as its treasurer.

He’s still serving that punishment and told NZME that steps were under way for him to repay the stolen $60,000.

“I deeply regret my actions and I’ve been punished for them,” he said. “I plan on moving on with my life.”

However, while the Auckland District Court had already sentenced him, as a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP) Greer is also subject to a code of ethics and rules governed by the building profession.

In a recently released decision, the Building Practioner’s Board issued a censure for Greer and said that his offending, although already litigated in the District Court, had brought the reputation of the building profession into disrepute.

Bankrupt builder Nicholas James Greer has been sentenced for stealing more than $60,000 from a North Shore theatre trust. Photo / Supplied

“… the conduct involved serious criminal offending. It was premeditated and sustained, and the victims were persons who knew and trusted the Respondent,” the board said in its decision.

“In those circumstances, the Board finds that the Respondent’s conduct has lowered the reputation of the Licensed Building Practitioner regime in the eyes of the public.”

The board said that people who wanted to employ Greer in the future needed to be aware of his history in order to make an informed decision about whether to hire him or not

“The imposition of a censure will achieve that. As such, and on the basis that the Respondent has been punished by the Courts, the Board will impose a censure which is a public expression of disapproval of his conduct,” the board said in its decision.

Normally the board holds a hearing into an LBP’s conduct but they dealt with Greer’s case on the papers. Greer told the Herald that the first he’d heard about the censure was when he was approached for comment..

Shoreside Theatre's popular annual Shakespeare in the Park production at the PumpHouse Theatre in Takapuna. Photo / Supplied

Offending

The court summary of facts outlined how the Shoreside Theatre was run by unpaid volunteers, of whom Greer was one and had been appointed treasurer in 2011.

However, his offending didn’t begin until 2019 when he began logging into the charity’s ASB account and started making payments to accounts linked to him, his building company, his wife and 6-year-old son. He would code the transitions to legitimate creditors.

Greer stole the money in 49 fraudulent online banking transfers over eight months in a move that Judge Anna-Marie Skellern described as “serious and premeditated” offending.

The fraud was uncovered when the nation went into lockdown in 2020, and several creditors got in touch to say, “You haven’t paid your bills”.

The theatre group launched an investigation and found Greer had been siphoning money from the accounts.

Shoreside Theatre’s current treasurer James Bell told the Herald Greer had joined the group as a respected businessman with a young family.

“He ran his own business and seemed to know what he was talking about with finances and was someone who could be trusted to look after the society’s bank accounts.”

Bell said that looking back, there had been warning signs. Greer would sometimes miss meetings or say financial records had been corrupted.

Greer's offending nearly devastated the Shoreside Theatre. Photo / Supplied

“He was sounding these warnings that we were running out of money but he was the one taking all the money.”

The effect of Greer’s dishonesty had been devastating, Bell said.

“It all came to a head at once. We had Covid, which meant we had to cancel shows. We had to move out of an industrial unit because we had no money to pay the rent.”

The group also had to get rid of costumes, props and sets, which were thrown in a skip bin as there was nowhere to store them.

The charity only survived due to the generosity of the theatre community who fundraised to keep the group afloat.

“Without that we wouldn’t have survived.”

Greer has twice been bankrupt and ran a failed building company, BG Projects Ltd, which collapsed into liquidation in 2019 owing $500,000 to 22 unsecured creditors.

One of them told the Herald she paid more than $200,000 for work that Greer never completed.