Garrett lied to court, papers reveal

David Garrett. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Disgraced former Act MP David Garrett lied to a court in 2005 to avoid a conviction for stealing the identity of a dead child to obtain a passport.

According to court documents made available to nzherald.co.nz today, Mr Garrett made no mention of his 2002 assault conviction in Tonga when, three years later, he appeared in a District Court at North Shore for stealing the identity of a dead baby.

Mr Garrett was convicted of assault in Tonga in 2002 and fined $10.

"Since being admitted [to the bar] in 1992, I have committed no criminal offence nor had any disciplinary proceedings brought against me either in New Zealand or Tonga," Mr Garrett, a former lawyer, told the court in 2005, the documents reveal.

"The worst I could be accused of is incurring some parking and speeding fines," he said.

"I respectfully ask this court to allow me to maintain the reputation I have built up over the last 13 years of practice and discharge me without conviction.

"I have never sought to deny what I did but it was simply a youthful and foolish mistake.

"There is certainly no chance of me appearing before the court again as the defendant," he said.

In 1984, aged 26, Mr Garrett copied the details of the gravestone of the dead child, whose name is suppressed, obtained the child's birth certificate, filled out a passport application form and photographed himself in a disguise which included dyed hair and glasses.

Mr Garrett also gave a false postal address in Christchurch on his application form.

He was arrested 21 years later after having first denied the allegation to police and was discharged without conviction when the case went to court in 2005.

Mr Garrett resigned from Act in September this year after the story of his convictions broke. He had been granted name suppression by the court in 2005 but after intense media coverage of the story, Mr Garrett, represented by Barry Hart, applied for his own name suppression to be lifted.

The documents also reveal Mr Garrett told the court that he suffered from an anxiety-depressive condition for which he takes medication.

He said he did not mention the medical condition as any kind of excuse, but said "I am - regrettably - not as psychologically robust as I would like to be."

He said being locked up by police was "very difficult to cope with".

Some parts of Mr Garrett's affidavit were suppressed by Judge Lindsay Moore and were deleted from the file, viewed by media this morning.

The file also contained letters of support from the director of public prosecutions in the Solomon Islands, John Cauchi, who said Mr Garrett "had strived to change himself" from the time he worked on an oil rig in the North Sea in 1984.

Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar also backed Mr Garrett, telling the judge that Mr Garrett had been a huge help to the trust, assisting victims appearing before the Parole Board and drafting submissions from the trust on legislation before Parliament.

"David may have made a mistake in his past life, but we have no hesitation in endorsing and vouching for the David Garrett we know today," Mr McVicar told the court.