Put aside finance company prejudice, jury told

Carol Braithwaite's jury trial begins today in Auckland. Photo / Greg Bowker

A High Court judge has told the jury trying Carol Braithwaite to ignore any prejudices they have about finance companies or finance company directors.

Braithwaite - the former wife of jailed National Finance boss Trevor Ludlow - is the first director from a failed New Zealand finance company to have a case before a jury.

As a National Finance director, she faces one charge of making untrue statements in a company prospectus. She has pleaded not guilty and will defend the charge on the basis that she believed at the time the prospectus was correct.

The charge, laid by the Financial Markets Authority, carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison or fines of up to $300,000.

Justice Pamela Andrews told the jury of 12 that there is no room for prejudice in the case, which started today.

"This trial is essentially about a finance company. You may have heard or read about trials of those who are directors of finance company, you may know someone who has invested in a finance company and you may have your own views about finance companies. During this trial, you put all of those views to one side, you deal with this trial solely on the basis on the evidence that is given in court and you keep open minds until you have heard all the evidence," Justice Andrews said.

The Crown will now give its opening arguments.

Although Braithwaite's judge-alone trial was scheduled to begin in Auckland last Monday and was expected to take three weeks, the case now has to be squeezed into a fortnight after she successfully applied to be tried by a jury.

A condensed case is necessary because a three-week or longer jury trial could not start until next year.

Opposing Braithwaite's application for a jury trial, Crown lawyer John Dixon expressed "grave doubts" in the ability of both sides to give their arguments in two weeks.

Dixon said although Braithwaite's case was not as complex as some of the other finance company prosecutions, the financial and accounting evidence involved could be "outside the purview of the ordinary juror".

Braithwaite had been due to appear in the dock with fellow director Anthony Banbrook, but the latter made an 11th-hour guilty plea. He will now be sentenced next month.

National Finance went into receivership in 2006, owing investors $21 million. Some investors have recovered 49c in the dollar.

Ludlow is serving a sentence of six years and four months after being convicted of charges laid by the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Markets Authority.

He was found guilty last July of defrauding investors of an estimated $3.5 million.

He and Braithwaite once shared a $1.5 million Devonport property and in 2009 he blamed the stress of the business' failure for the pair's break-up.

Both are banned from being company directors until next April.

National Finance accountant John Gray pleaded guilty to theft and false accounting charges in the Auckland District Court in 2010 and was sentenced to nine months' home detention.