Donna Grant trial likely to go to high court due to length

Donna Grant. Photo / Andrew Warner

A district court judge has told Donna Grant her trial is likely to be transferred to the High Court at Rotorua because of the length of time it is expected to run.

Grant, who is Sir Howard Morrison's daughter, has been charged with dishonesty offences over claiming education funding for courses taken by hundreds of students including Warriors players and staff.

She appeared in the Rotorua District Court today before Judge Greg Hollister-Jones.

"It is 95 per cent likely to go to the High Court," the judge said. "It's an eight-week trial and we'd struggle to accommodate that in the district court."

Lawyer Vishnu Seger appeared for the Serious Fraud Office and said it was likely 70 witnesses would be called over the course of the trial, many of them students.

Grant faces representative charges of dishonestly using documents and obtaining by deception, and individual charges of creating a forged document and using a forged document.

The Serious Fraud Office alleges Grant used her position in several organisations to fraudulently obtain funding from the tertiary education provider Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and the Tertiary Education Commission.

Grant, 60, has a background in education, particularly in Māori performing arts in and around the Te Arawa region.

Grant held numerous prominent positions with charitable organisations and in the education sector generally between 2010 and 2014.

The charges before the court relate to when Grant was a trustee of the Te Arawa Kapa Charitable Trust, a member of the board of trustees for the New Zealand Warriors Foundation, as well as the executive director of a private training establishment, Manaakitanga Aotearoa Trust.

She was remanded on bail until February 22, 2019 for a trial callover. In the meantime a case management memorandum to move the case to the High Court has already been filed.