Hide: 'I couldn't as leader defend him'

Act MP David Garrett resigned as an Act MP today. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Act MP David Garrett resigned today hours after party leader Rodney Hide told him he couldn't support the under-fire MP because of an affidavit he had submitted to court over a passport fraud case.

Mr Hide said the concerning aspect of the case was that in sentencing, the judge talked about Mr Garrett's previously blameless life.

Mr Hide said he heard about the affidavit issue yesterday while in Hong Kong. "I rang David from the airport in Hong Kong to state that I couldn't as leader defend him on this issue," he told reporters this afternoon. "It was a tough phone call to make."

He said he could not defend Mr Garrett because "I believe that what the judge took from the statement was not the full truth".

Mr Hide said he was not satisfied Mr Garrett had been truthful in the affidavit.

He was told by Mr Garrett about the passport fraud when he applied to be a party member, but Mr Hide said he considered it had been historic and was prepared to give him a chance.

He said today he couldn't recall what level of detail Mr Garrett had gone into when telling him about how he had obtained the passport.

Mr Hide said he had not got around to actually asking Mr Garrett if he had been truthful with the court. "To be frank, I was going to have that conversation with him today and I haven't."

He stopped short of suggesting Mr Garrett may have committed perjury.

Mr Hide said Mr Garrett had resigned of his own volition.

Asked whether he would have been happy for Mr Garrett to remain as an Act MP in spite of this week's revelations around the criminal charges he'd faced, Mr Hide said he and the party had "made a call on that".

"We were very proud to have David Garrett stand for us as I've never met a guy who was so passionate and knew such a lot about what we needed to do for law and order and he delivered on that.

"What I regret is as a consequence of him coming to Parliament that poor family have had to go through all that suffering again."

While Mr Hide knew of Mr Garrett's passport charges, he said he couldn't remember whether Mr Garrett had volunteered details of how he obtained the document, including a visit to a New Plymouth cemetery to facilitate the theft of the dead child's identity.

"I don't know what level of detail I knew."

Mr Hide now believed it was a mistake to support Mr Garrett as an Act party list candidate, "not because of David - he was an outstanding MP because of his achievements ... but what I feel bad about is the impact on the family".

Garrett quits Act Party

Earlier, the disgraced MP quit his party and conceded his political career is almost certainly over.

However, Mr Garrett said in an interview with Radio New Zealand that was not his greatest concern.

"The worst aspect of all of this is that those who have seen fit to do so have opened the wounds of the boy's mother and sister again.

"As the person who inflicted those wounds in the first place, however unwittingly I must take ultimate responsibility for that."

He later released a statement in which he said he regretted his actions.

"I can do nothing to change the past. For any number of reasons, I wish I had not done such a stupid and dreadfully hurtful thing in 1984. When my wrongdoing was revealed, the worst aspect of it all for me was reading the letters written by the mother and sister of the dead boy whose identity I used to obtain the passport.

"I wrote letters of apology at the time - letters I realised were woefully inadequate, but there was nothing else I could do. I wish to reiterate my profound regret for the distress and hurt my thoughtless actions inflicted on two women, one of whom is elderly. I am simply unable to imagine how it must have felt at the time they first learned of what I had done, and I am equally unable to imagine what they must feel now.

"I still well recall my horror when I read the letters from the boy's relatives, one of them in the handwriting of a clearly elderly lady. I do not think I have ever felt worse. There is certainly no excuse for what I did, and I make none."

Mr Garrett had not decided whether he would resign from Parliament or stay on as an independent, he told Radio NZ.

He would take two weeks' leave, consult with family and friends and make a decision after that.

However he said: "My political career is almost certainly over".

Newstalk ZB reported that two police officers flanked David Garrett as he left Christchurch Airport this afternoon after fleeing Wellington.

Reporter Brodie Kane said the MP refused to answer media questions about his resignation from Act, and a couple of onlookers yelled out to Mr Garrett "show us your passport".

Court documents

Details of Mr Garrett's deception are revealed in court papers from 2005 when he was charged with forging a document, namely a passport application form.

In his sentencing notes, Judge Keith de Ridder said: "There were deliberate acts involving several steps. There is a considerable act of planning in carrying out the crime."

The mother of the 2-year-old boy whose identity was stolen by Mr Garrett has described the identity theft as "stealing from the grave".

A brother of the dead child said yesterday that Mr Garrett was the "lowest of the low" and should be kicked out of Parliament.

Court documents reveal Mr Garrett visited a cemetery in New Plymouth in 1984 and found the gravestone of the boy, whose birthdate was close to his own.

He copied the details, 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 gave a fake postal address in Christchurch on his application form.

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

North Shore District Court Judge Philippa Cunningham yesterday revoked a suppression order placed on the case in 2005, but suppressed the identity of the baby and his family.

Judge de Ridder said in 2005: "Basically he has otherwise a blameless record and he seeks an order from the court to allow him to retain his reputation that he has built up over 13 years."

But the MP revealed on Wednesday that his record was not blameless, confirming that he had been charged with assault in Tonga in 2002 and fined $10.

One News reported last night that Mr Garrett might have misled the court by claiming in a document associated with his 2005 case that he had no criminal record.

- Paul Harper, Edward Gay, Jarrod Booker, Adam Bennett and James Ihaka and NZHERALD STAFF, ADDITIONAL REPORTING: NZPA