Huatas 'callous and calculating'

Hira Huata confronts a photographer outside the court yesterday. Picture / Dean Purcell

Donna Awatere Huata and husband, Wi, were callous and calculating as they stole from a Maori trust for underprivileged children - but even worse were their attempts to cover up the crime, which displayed a "Machiavellian enterprise".

Judge Roderick Joyce, QC, yesterday sentenced the former Act MP to two years and nine months behind bars for fraud and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Wi Huata was sentenced to two years' jail on the same charges but was given leave to apply for home detention.

The sentencing in the Auckland District Court brought to a close two years of allegations, investigations and court appearances.

Defence lawyer Roy Wade said: "Seldom can there have been such a devastating fall from grace in the public arena."

Judge Joyce said Awatere Huata suffered beyond the sentence.

"The higher one's foothold on fame, the greater the fall and the worse the injury," he said.

The judge was forced to postpone proceedings after Wi Huata's sibling Hira Huata stood up in the packed public gallery and accused the court of administering "white man's justice".

The outburst was followed by a haka from some members of the Huatas' supporters before police arrived. The gallery included prominent figures from Maoridom, including newly elected Maori Party MPs Dr Pita Sharples and Hone Harawira.

Another supporter held up a sign saying: "Halt all race-based sentencing."

The couple were found guilty of four joint charges of fraud and one joint charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Awatere Huata, who entered Parliament in 1996, was found guilty of one individual charge of fraud and not guilty of another fraud charge.

The charges came from a Serious Fraud Office investigation, which revealed they stole from the Government-funded Pipi Foundation. The money was used to pay for their children's school fees and for a stomach-stapling operation for Awatere Huata.

She set Pipi up in 1999 to help the literacy and social skills of under-privileged Maori children.

Over three years it received more than $840,000 in government funding.

At the beginning of yesterday's proceedings two cheques totalling $55,629 were handed over as the agreed reparation to the foundation.

Guyon Foley, appearing for Awatere Huata, said the payment should be considered a mitigating factor, as should the 56-year-old's previously unblemished record.

"The bottom line is she spent her life trying to improve the lives of others," he said.

She accepted the conviction, but the media coverage meant she had already paid a high price.

"She chose a life in the public eye, but she has suffered more than her fair share of slings and arrows."

Mr Wade said Wi Huata, 44, had no relevant previous convictions and his role in relation to the fraud was "entirely passive".

Judge Joyce said the case was one of the most difficult he had dealt with.

There were many, many good things that Awatere Huata had done "for her people, her community and for the nation generally".

But neither she nor her husband showed remorse and, in the case of Awatere Huata, she "cannot or will not let go of the belief that the jury got it wrong".

Defence counsel had called for a community punishment or for a lenient jail sentence.

"It's hard to show mercy to prisoners who are in denial," the judge said.

However, he said he hoped the Huatas would learn from their experience.

"I'm confident that each of them, she particularly, will rise again to new and renewed service and that we should all look forward to that day."

Wi Huata echoed that sentiment. He told One News last night that he found it "remarkable" how much energy his wife still had.

"What we are interested in is the next 30 years in front of us."