Offending 'pretty sorry': Judge

Denys Douglas spent money erroneously put in his bank account on Holdens.

A Hastings man who spent almost $172,000 on a fleet of Holdens after a bank error has been sentenced to 12 months home detention.

Denys Jeremy Douglas, 63, was sentenced at the Napier District Court yesterday after pleading guilty to charges of dishonestly using a document and money laundering last week.

He had also been found guilty at trial of assault with a weapon after breaking a man's teeth with a baseball bat.

Douglas, a sickness beneficiary, applied for an extension to his mortgage in June 2011, which was granted before an error at the BNZ resulted in $172,250 being credited to his account rather than the $7000 he applied for.

During the next three weeks he spent $171,546.35 on a variety of Holden cars.

Judge Bridget Mackintosh said the offending was "a pretty sorry state of affairs all round".

"When an error occurs they are justified in expecting that the customer will not take advantage of it."

She said the offending was not a one-off.

"There were a number of transactions, part of it involving wheeling and dealing, buying and selling of motor vehicles. It appears there was some effort to conceal that money by the wheeling and dealing of motor vehicles."

Douglas' lawyer, Russell Fairbrother, told the court his client was not acting dishonestly when he spent the money.

"The difficulty is that when the money was credited to his account he was expecting payments from two other sources," Mr Fairbrother said. He said Douglas had attempted to resolve the matter with the bank.

"The bank would not discuss a constructive way to resolve this matter."

The court heard Douglas had lost his home and the bank was still owed in excess of $200,000 even after the mortgagee sale of Douglas' home.

A summary of facts said Douglas bought a 2006 Clubsport R8, a 2002 Holden Commodore SS and a 2002 Holden Commodore VX.

The BNZ discovered its mistake in September 2011 when Douglas' mortgage payments went into arrears.

Douglas told the bank he had won some money on a lottery and had been expecting a Winz payment around the time the large amount from the bank was credited into his account.