Michael John Hawkins said he took the money to protect it from another person involved in the charity. Photo/file
Michael John Hawkins said he took the money to protect it from another person involved in the charity. Photo/file
A man who allegedly stole more than $6000 from the Wellington Foodbank he was running claims he took the funds to keep the charity on its feet.
Wellington Foodbank Service Inc, which is not related to the Wellington City Mission, has gone into liquidation since the alleged offending in 2013,but the 47-year-old said the theft was "necessary" to protect the money.
Another person involved in the charity "couldn't be trusted to withdraw money at the set time", Hawkins said from the dock in the Wellington District Court yesterday.
The $6790 he withdrew in 13 different transactions around Wellington was "to keep the foodbank running and in existence", he said.
"Unfortunately I'm guilty of using a bank card without permission but it was a necessary thing I had to do to basically keep the foodbank going and people to still receive the foodbank parcels on time."
Hawkins has yet to plead to a charge of theft by a person in a special relationship, and using a document for pecuniary advantage. He told the court he did not take the money for his own benefit.
The allegations came about when the Department of Internal Affairs launched an investigation into the charity, police prosecutor Alice Handcock said.
"An Internal Affairs investigation found out of the total amount of money that had gone into the foodbank service, a very small part of that money had actually gone to foodbank services, and that the vast majority of that money had been withdrawn from the account beyond what it was donated for."
