Most of the transactions were for around $1000 or more but one on April 27 was for $1.518m.
The following month, she contacted her sister’s lawyer about changing her sister’s will and told him about the large withdrawal which was to buy herself and her husband a new house.
She said her sister had consented to it. She was told by the lawyer her sister wasn’t mentally fit to consent and Rutter wasn’t allowed to make withdrawals.
Rutter paid the house money back. But, then she went on to take more money.
In July she took out about $50,000 to buy a new vehicle.
Family members eventually found out and a complaint was made to police.
Rutter was in the Te Kūiti District Court on Thursday where, through her lawyer Tyler-Rose Keatley, she applied for a discharge without conviction after earlier pleading guilty to one representative charge of theft by a person in a special relationship.
It left Judge Brett Crowley in an awkward position with a “most unusual case”, and one which had been “very difficult and challenging to get to grips with in a fairly short space of time”.
He was referring to the significant gap that separated what the police submitted should happen to her - a five-and-a-half-year prison starting point - and what the defence wanted, a discharge without conviction.
“I have not seen before the parties, especially experienced and learned parties being so far apart in terms of the sentence being requested.
“It is extremely rare to have such conflicting submissions made in respect of the matter. In my view that simply emphasises what a unique matter this is.”
Police prosecutor Baden Hilton submitted the fact that Rutter’s offending occurred after the sister had been declared incompetent took it up “a considerable notch”.
Keatley, on behalf of her senior counsel, Rob Weir, urged Judge Crowley to “exercise mercy” and grant the application.
She said her client and family had uprooted themselves from Australia to care for her sister in Te Kuiti.
Rutter had simply had a “momentary lapse in judgment” about the conditions of the power of attorney but had sought legal advice and then paid most of the money back soon after.
She’d since suffered a significant bereavement, likely lost her family and a conviction would have serious ramifications for her mental health.
“She will have to restart her life in her late 60s, early 70s.”
Keatley said Rutter was not a financial danger to the public.
However, Judge Crowley said he was “very concerned” about Rutter’s comments to the pre-sentence report writer in which she “flatly denies” the offending and only pleaded guilty due to a “misunderstanding”, she had permission to take the money and had “done nothing wrong”.
The pre-sentence report writer, therefore, recommended a prison sentence as the only option.
Keatley said she’d queried that with her client on Thursday, and said Rutter did understand what it meant to plead guilty.
Judge Crowley said if Rutter did intend to vacate her guilty plea, “it would be destined to fail” as she clearly breached the terms of the power of attorney.
In declining her application for a discharge without conviction, the judge classified her offending as “very serious ... there’s simply no other way to put it”.
He labelled the offending as “unsophisticated”; the money wouldn’t have been difficult to locate and she didn’t attempt to justify the reason for doing it.
About $67,000 remained outstanding and was now sought in reparation.
He also noted the victim’s “remarkable”, “compassionate, and forgiving” comments about her sister.
“I don’t know what came over Bronwyn,” the sister wrote, “And I don’t know what to make of it all.
“I’d be upset if a stranger took that amount of money from me, but she’s my baby sister and it’s only fair that I look out for her, and I want the best for her.”
Rutter was convicted, with Judge Crowley indicating a start point of four years’ prison, and remanded her for sentencing in November.
Belinda Feek has been a reporter for 19 years, and at the Herald for eight years, joining the Open Justice team in 2022.
