Former MP aimed to rival cousin in weight loss

Former Act MP Donna Awatere Huata told a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigator she saved for more than two years to have a stomach stapling operation, a jury in the Auckland District Court heard yesterday.

Awatere Huata was interviewed following allegations in the media that she used money from the Government-funded Pipi Foundation to pay for the operation.

The SFO, represented by Robert Fardell, QC, alleges that one Pipi cheque for $30,946 was used to pay for the stomach operation, school fees and other personal expenditure.

A video-taped SFO interview in September 2003 was played to the jury yesterday.

Awatere Huata denied from the outset to senior SFO investigator Stephen Drain that she used any Pipi Foundation money for personal purposes. She was then asked about the gastric bypass.

She said a cousin had gone from 150kg to 57kg by having the operation and she wanted similar results.

"I was just exhausted with being overweight. I tried everything and I just kept getting bigger and bigger" Awatere Huata told the SFO.

She said she discussed a stomach stapling operation with her husband, but he was very much opposed.

It wasn't that he wanted her fat; he just thought it was a waste of money.

Awatere Huata told the investigator that she did not tell her husband that she was planning to go ahead with the operation because he was "fiercely opposed" to it.

After seeing her cousin's dramatic results, Awatere Huata told the SFO that she started putting money aside for the operation.

She saved for two to two-and-a-half years before getting the operation done in December 2000.

It was only after the allegations started to surface about misuse of Pipi Foundation money that she told her husband about the surgery.

She said that she had withdrawn sums of between $500 and $900 from her bank account over that period to put aside for the operation. She agreed that the SFO could expect to see withdrawals of those sorts of amounts from the ANZ.

She said she also salted away $1800 from gate sales of fruit at their Hastings property.

Awatere Huata said she paid for the $18,000 operation with two bank cheques, bought for cash.

Former Pipi chairwoman, Kathy Skipworth, who has a conviction for fraud against the foundation, earlier told the jury that Awatere told her that a Pipi cheque for $30,946 was for stomach stapling and school fees.

Awatere Huata told the investigator there was no truth in Mrs Skipworth's story.

She said she filled in the dollar amount on the cheque because she had been told there were a number of items that needed to be paid for in relation to Pipi business.

She could not recall seeing the invoices but she understood they had been submitted and approved by foundation trustees. The cheque was signed by Mrs Skipworth, who has told the jury that Awatere Huata made her sign blank cheques.

Mr Drain asked why the $30,946 cheque had been made out to cash and she said that was required by those who were to receive the payment.

The rest of the interview will be played today.