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Fashion Week founder and managing director Pieter Stewart is sticking by her husband after he was convicted of sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl.
Peter Maxwell Stewart, 62, a luxury charter boat operator, farmer and member of one of Canterbury's wealthiest families, was found guilty by a High Court jury earlier this month of one charge of sodomy, one of rape, two of inducing an indecent act and three of indecent assault.
The acts took place between 30 and 40 years ago, from when the victim was as young as 8.
Stewart's lawyer Jonathan Eaton yesterday gave up the battle to keep his client's name suppressed, saying his identity was already widely known.
The Stewart family's electrical fittings and goods company, PDL, was sold to French firm Schneider in 2001 for $97 million, and the family is now involved in a range of business ventures.
Stewart married Pieter in 1968, and it was during their marriage that he was found to have committed the sexual acts against his victim.
Mrs Stewart took the witness box in her husband's defence during his trial and said she never saw any evidence of abuse. She could not be reached for comment yesterday, but in a letter to Fashion Week sponsors yesterday, she and her daughter Myken, the event's brand manager, said: "We wish to dismiss any concerns that you may have about this iconic event arising from publicity around matters affecting our family.
"It is important to us that our sponsors are aware of our total ongoing commitment to delivering another outstanding showcase of New Zealand fashion."
Stewart was present at his wife's side front-row at many of the shows during Fashion Week in September. The couple split their time between a deer farm near Methven in Canterbury, and Auckland.
During the trial, the jury heard that Stewart had admitted to his wife some years earlier about having sex with the victim in a boat when she was aged 17, but denied any other sexual encounters took place.
Mrs Stewart described her husband as always patient with his victim, who suffered a disability. She told the court she never saw any evidence of anything sexual occurring between her husband and the victim, who was known to both of them.
"I could assure you if I had ever suspected anything I would have done something very strongly about it.
"[She] clearly had a crush on Peter from a young age, but we have all had crushes. I never had any reason to think anything different from just that."
But prosecutor Phil Shamy said Stewart had moulded his victim to the point where she became infatuated with him and agreed to keep the abuse a secret. The girl, 14 years his junior, came to believe that she was in love.
"That's perhaps the saddest part of this case - how he manipulated her," Mr Shamy said. "She sees him as a Prince Charming perhaps. He sees her as the perfect victim. He twisted her feelings for a purpose."
Police only became involved in the case after Stewart visited the victim in 2003.
The victim said Stewart had asked her for sex, but he maintained she had misunderstood.
After the allegations arose, Stewart's stepmother, Lady Adrienne Stewart - described in court as the matriarch of the family - offered the victim a house in Christchurch.
The prosecution said this was an attempt to stop the allegations against Stewart seeing the light of day, but the defence said it was simply an act of generosity towards a woman having financial problems.
After the allegations surfaced, Mrs Stewart confronted her husband and he admitted to cheating on her with the victim. Stewart said he could see himself losing 35 years of marriage, his four "beautiful children" and the "big businesses" they had created together.
"Looking back now, God knows why it happened, but it happened."
During the trial, Stewart's defence lawyer Jonathan Eaton tried to paint the victim as a liar "fuelled by fantasy, ignited by envy and motivated by money".
She had concocted a story of abuse for attention and to blackmail Stewart and his family, Mr Eaton said.
Stewart was in fact a "respectable, patient, generous man".
He is to be sentenced in February.
