Veterinarian planned fraud, Crown claims

Press, 10 March 1987, Page 16

Veterinarian planned fraud, Crown claims

A veterinarian with an interest in racehorses was alleged by the Crown in the District Court yesterday to have planned a “quite sophisticated” insurance fraud to try to obtain $168,000 insurance on two horses that died before they were supposedly to be sent to the United States. Mr G. K. Panckhurst, for the Crown, said that investigations into the alleged fraud showed that something was seriously amiss. The veterinarian, Henry Mervyn Graham Williamson, aged 55, formerly of Timaru and now of Templeton, is facing trial before Judge Laing and a jury on a charge that on or about March 23, 1983, at Timaru, he used an insurance claiin form to obtain for himself a pecuniary advantage, $168,000. He has denied the charge, and is represented by Mr K. N. Hampton and Ms S. B. Lewis. The trial is expected to continue into next week. Sixteen Crown witnesses are to be called. Mr Panckhurst, in his opening outline of the Crown’s case, lasting an hour, said evidence would be that in early 1983 Williamson had seen an agent of the Commercial Union Insurance Company to arrange insurance cover for two horses in transit to the United States. Williamson told the agent he had sold them for SUS6O,OOO each (SNZB3,OOO each at that time). A proposal was drawn up to provide insurance cover for just under $3OOO. Williamson showed two cablegrams from districts in New Jersey, conveying the offers. The day after the issue of the insurance policy, January 29, 1983, Williamson drove from Timaru with the two horses, to stable them at Harcourts Lodge, West Melton, run by Mr Graham Court. The horses were to have been stabled there for two or three nights, before being transported to Auckland and flown from there to a buyer in the United States. Williamson returned to Timaru the next evening. In the early morning of February 1, Williamson telephoned the insurance agent and said the two horses had been found dead in their paddock at Harcourt Lodge. The insurance company was informed, and en- > gaged an insurance assessor because of the likelihood of a substantial

claim, Mr Panckhurst said. The background of the two horses was then investigated. Veterinarians from the Animal Health Laboratory at Lincoln College made a post-mortem examination of the horses, and specimens were taken for laboratory analysis and samples were taken to test for chemicals. Mr Panckhurst said these veterinary officers’ evidence would be quite lengthy and of crucial importance. Evidence would be that it was unusual for two horses to die suddenly in a paddock in the way these horses were said to have died. Mr Panckhurst said there would be quite compelling evidence that the horses died violent deaths. One had crashed through a wire fence into an adjoining paddock, and the ground in the vicinity of both horses was much disturbed. Mr Panckhurst traversed the significance of bacterial viruses isolated in the horses’ bodies and said that, in spite of reservations after the post-mortem examination, the finding was that both horses died of natural causes. A claim for $168,000 from the insurance company was then made. Professor C. H. G. Irvine, of Lincoln College, was involved in the investigation and his evidence would be that salmonella was very rarely a disease in adult horses. For it to affect adult rather than young horses there must be a predisposing factor, reducing the horses’ resistance. This witness could not find anything that had stressed the horses and could have led to an outbreak of the disease. There was an absence of clinical signs that the horses had died of this disease. His evidence effectively discounted salmonella as the cause of the horses’ deaths. Referring to suggested foul play by poisoning, Mr Panckhurst said tests for poisons proved inconclusive. ‘'c However, evidence would be that the range of poisons was quite vast, and it was impossible to test for some; and certain poisons broke down in tissues and could not be detected some time after death. Although the cause of death of the horses could not be established, the Crown contended the only

conclusion was that foul play had occurred. Mr Panckhurst said a development in the case after the preliminary hearing was that new evidence became available that the horses had died the day before Mr Court and Williamson had stated. Mr Court, re-inter-viewed, stated he tried to telephone Williamson in Timaru, but could not get him. He had not got veterinary attention for the horses because he considered they were “doomed” after they went down in the paddock. He again telephoned Williamson in the evening and asked what he wanted him to do. Williamson told him to ring back the next morning. Court’s evidence would; be that the next morning Williamson had said: “They died Tuesday didn’t they?” For that reason Mr Court had misled the veterinarians when they arrived at his property, it was alleged. The Crown contended that the only possible construction that could be placed on this incident was that Williamson engineered the day’s delay in informing the veterinarians that the horses were dead. This “time lapse” was devised because Williamson knew that the spread of salmonella from the gut to other areas of the horses’ bodies after death would “cloud” the examination of cause of death. Mr Panckhurst then traversed evidence which would be given into other matters relating to the investigation. He said no trace could be found of a Mr Thiabeau, the alleged buyer of the horses in New Jersey. Williamson had friends, and a son in the area from which the cables confirming the sale had been sent. Mr Panckhurst said that "perhaps a curious coinci-

deuce’’ was that a horse, Thiabeau, raced in the Washdyke area in the 19705. Mr Panckhurst said evidence from an agent for a horse transport firm in Auckland would be that Williamson made bookings for the horses to be flown to the United States, at a cost of $6500 each. The export documents associated with their passage required a value for the horses, and Williamson allegedly gave a figure of $5OOO for each horse, Mr Panckhurst said. ? He said this was consistent with figures given by bloodstock experts as the true value of the horses. The horses had no form to support the alleged sale values, the Crow contended. The insurance company refused to pay on the claim, and the matter was reported to the police in November, 1983, on the basis \ that the claim Williamson made was a fraudulent document, Mr Panckhurst said. More court news Page 18