Former company boss jailed on fraud charges

Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley. Photo / Dean Purcell

The former boss of a Christchurch marine company has been jailed for three years for fraud totalling nearly $1.6 million.

Peter Edward Hynes was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court today, after pleading guilty to 40 charges of fraud while he was the director of MacPherson Marine Limited.

The charges relate to false representations Hynes made to GE Commercial Finance, the company which provided finance to MacPherson Marine, to obtain and retain credit.

The SFO said Hynes submitted false loan applications to Marac Finance and stole further funds paid to MacPherson Marine by customers as payment on boats and motors.

He used the majority of the funds to repay MacPherson Marine's growing debts to GE.

MacPherson Marine went into liquidation in July 2006, soon after Hynes' actions were discovered.

Hynes fled to Australia soon after.

He was arrested in Queensland on July 7 last year living under an assumed name and was extradited to New Zealand later that month.

Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley said that while the case involved "relatively modest losses", it exemplified the huge social and economic impacts that fraud had on individuals.

"This case resulted in job losses, and forced some victims into selling their homes.

"Fraud is a social evil which should never be under-estimated,." he said.