Vet. accused of $168,000 horse fraud

Press, 17 June 1986, Page 19

Vet. accused of $168,000 horse fraud

A District Court jury trial has begun of a former Timaru veterinary surgeon charged with a $168,000 insurance fraud. Henry Mervyn Graham Williamson, now of Templeton, is accused of making a fraudulent claim on two of his racehorses which died in transit to a supposed buyer in the United States. The trial, before Judge Fraser and a jury of eight men and four women, is expected to take seven or eight days. Mr K. N. Hampton appears for Williamson, and Mr G. K. Panckhurst for the Crown. Opening the case for the Crown, Mr Panckhurst said that Williamson had insured the two horses, producing two cables from a Mr Thiabeau, in New Jersey, as evidence of the purchase, at SUS6O,OOO each, in January 1983. He then drove the horses to Harcourt Lodge at West Melton, where they were to stay for a few days before continuing travel to the United States. The horses were reported dead in their paddock at West Melton, on February 1, 1983, the day they were to have been uplifted to travel on to Auckland. Mr Panckhurst said that evidence would be given by vets who carried out post-mortem examinations on the horses that day. They had found that the horses died violently, with many self-inflicted bruises. One had crashed through a fence into the adjoining paddock. Those witnesses would say that they “reluctantly” put the deaths down to salmonella poisoning, though that is rare in healthy adult horses, because they could find no other cause. However, another expert witness, ' who reviewed the circumstances of the deaths later, would discount that theory, said Mr Panckhurst. He would say in evidence that the horses did not die of natural causes. Another witness, a chemist, would say he did

not find evidence of poisoning, but that there were some poisons that would break down as time elasped after death. Mr Panckhurst said that a crucial development in the prosecution case come when the wife of the owner of Harcourt Lodge came forward with further evidence, after the original depositions hearing. She would tell the court that the horses apparently died the day before their deaths were reported. In the meantime, other evidence had been gathered on other irregularities in the matter. Mr Panckhurst said that the buyer, Mr Thiabeau, could not be tracked down, but that Williamson had friends, and a son, in the area of New Jersey from which the cables confirming the sale had come. Evidence would be given that the horses did not justify the value put on them, said Mr Panckhurst. One, Calvinia, was a four-year-old which had never qualified to race. Jackwin, a nine-year-old, had had seven starts, the last in 1980, and his best place was fifth.

The case was “a planned, sophisticated insurance fraud,” said Mr Panckhurst.