Mark Lundy retrial: Lundy warned about vineyard venture

Details of Mark Lundy's financial difficulties are being revealed in the High Court at Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Double murder accused Mark Lundy was warned of the high risks he faced if the vineyard venture he was pushing through failed, a court was told today.

Lundy, 56, is fighting charges in the High Court at Wellington of killing his wife Christine and 7-year-old daughter Amber.

The mother and daughter were found violently murdered in their Palmerston North home on the morning of August 30, 2000.

This week the court has heard evidence of two plots of land in Hawkes Bay that Lundy wanted to buy to grow wine making grapes.

But he went unconditional on the deal before securing guaranteed investors into the scheme. The investors failed to eventuate.

Today the court heard from Allan Clarke, a viticulture expert who examined the plots Lundy was interested in.

He said the costs for setting up the 44ha land as a vineyard would have been about $32,000 per hectare, plus infrastructure costs that would have included roads, sheds and power.

"At that time that would have been quite a large corporate vineyard."

Lawyer Phillip Sunderland worked for Lundy in setting up his company Wine Growers and giving advise on how to legally seek investors for the property.

He said he warned Lundy about the dangers of an unconditional agreement on the land without having guaranteed investment in place.

It would have been a "robust" conversation, he said.

Business advisor and friend David Gaynor said between eight weeks and three weeks before Mrs Lundy's death, he warned her about the risks to her and her husband's kitchen sink distribution company, Marchris, should the vineyard venture fail.

"I said the project was a very big risk."

He believed Marchris did not have the funds to put the deal together, and he urged her to tell her husband of his concerns.

The court also heard evidence from office administrator Victoria Jack, for accounting firm McKenzie McPhail, who said the company did some work for Lundy, but he failed to pay any invoices.

The final invoice of $11,219.36 was eventually written off, she said.