Sir Howard Morrison's daughter Donna Grant charged with dishonesty offences

Donna Grant. Photo / Andrew Warner

Sir Howard Morrison's daughter Donna Grant has been charged with dishonesty offences over claiming education funding for courses taken by hundreds of students including Warriors players and staff.

Grant appeared in the Rotorua District Court today on representative charges of dishonestly using documents and obtaining by deception, and individual charges of creating a forged document and using a forged document.

The Serious Fraud Office alleges that the defendant used her position in several organisations to fraudulently obtain funding from the tertiary education provider Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and the Tertiary Education Commission.

Grant, 60, has a background in education, particularly in Māori performing arts in and around the Te Arawa region.

Grant held numerous prominent positions with charitable organisations and in the education sector generally between 2010 and 2014.

She was the first woman to be appointed to the board of the Warriors rugby league club in 2012.

She served on several boards including the Glenn Family Foundation, Te Matatini National Kapa Haka and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority Ngā Kaitūhono Advisory Board.

The charges before the court relate to when Grant was a trustee of the Te Arawa Kapa Charitable Trust, a member of the board of trustees for the New Zealand Warriors Foundation, as well as the executive director of a private training establishment, Manaakitanga Aotearoa Trust.

Nearly 100 Warriors players and staff were said to have completed an 18-week course in just one day in 2013, when Grant was Sir Owen Glenn's representative on the Warriors board.