Matthew Blomfield Puppet Master Or Wannabe Lawyer?

Following on from the story LF published on the 12th May 2014, Matthew Blomfield, the friendly liquidator & the dodgy lawyers trust account – just where did the cash go? LF’s story followed on the heels of a piece that had appeared in New Zealand’s National Business Review (NBR).

The NBR story quoted Grant Thornton, accountant Greg Sherrif who had been responsible for the liquidation of a company connected to Matthew John Blomfield. In fact that company had been owned and controlled by Matthew Blomfield’s brother Daniel Blomfield who is currently serving a prison sentence for assault.

NBR Journo Victoria Young says:

Grant Thornton associate Greg Sherriff, who is liquidating Mr Blomfield’s brother Dan Blomfield’s company, says he had originally engaged the brother, Matthew, to help with the liquidation of Civil Solutions Holdings.

He says the incarceration of Dan Blomfield has made debt collection difficult. Dan Blomfield was sentenced to a jail term for assault earlier this year.
“Initially I asked Matt to see if he could help assist in the collection of debts and that didn’t really work because they didn’t trust the change of name from Dan to Matt,” Mr Sherriff says.
Dan Blomfield voluntarily liquidated the excavation company when faced with jail time, according to Mr Sherriff.

Source: Blomfield fails to collect cash for brother’s liquidation (1st Ed, NBR, 12 May 2014)

Within a matter of hours LF was advised that the NBR story had been pulled down. Approximately an hour later the story reappeared with the addition of one paragraph. LF learned that Matthew Blomfield had called the Journalist wanting a few changes.

We thought it a little strange that Blomfield would be calling the NBR Journo, Victoria Young, after the horse had bolted, so to speak. Surely Ms Young would have given Blomfield that opportunity prior to publishing her piece. In fact we are pretty sure that Victoria Young would have given Matthew Blomfield that opportunity. Nevertheless the updated version of Victoria Youngs piece changed little, other than the first paragraph:

Auckland businessman Matthew Blomfield declined a request from a liquidator to collect debts stemming from his jailed brothers company in liquidation.

Source: Blomfield fails to collect cash for brother’s liquidation (2nd Ed, NBR, 12 May 2014)

LF also telephoned the NBR and confirmed that they had offered Greg Sherriff the opportunity to add to his recollection of events, apparently Mr Sherriff was standing by his story and the information he’d given Victoria Young in the first place, that being that “he had originally engaged the brother, Matthew, to help with the liquidation of Civil Solutions Holdings”. No doubt there will have been itemised payments for services rendered, so it should be relatively easy for Grant Thornton to verify, providing the firms managed the liquidation by the book.

So if Accountants Grant Thornton’s Greg Sherriff is telling the truth, and we have absolutely no reason at this point to believe otherwise, why would Matthew John Blomfeild then decide to telephone the NBR and want to have added his somewhat “belated” and obviously contested version of events; that he had turned down Greg Sheriffs request to approach the debtors? Is Blomfield at it again, lying? Needing perhaps to do a little rewriting of history? If so, the million dollar question is then; WHY?

“Initially I asked Matt to see if he could help assist in the collection of debts and that didn’t really work because they didn’t trust the change of name from Dan to Matt,” Mr Sherriff says.

Source: Blomfield fails to collect cash for brother’s liquidation (1st Ed, NBR, 12 May 2014)

As an aside we doubt very much that the debtors were avoiding payment simply because Dan Blomfield was in prison and they could get away with it, of course that is just our opinion based on what is  known. LF suspects there are likely far more plausible reasons for the lack of ‘trust’ and their purported reluctance to pay Matthew Blomfield, however, one would need to interview (under caution; s23(4), NZ Bill of Rights Act) each and every debtor that Blomfield had approached to establish what exactly it was that had been asked of them. The debtors answers to that particular question, LF suspects, may in fact also provide a plausible explanation for Matthew Blomfield’s sudden and very obvious desire to be seen not to have had anything to do with the company’s debtors – who knows?

Since publishing the last piece LF have been doing a little more watching, waiting and digging. We’ve also been running checks on a few of Matthew Blomfields known Associates (he seems to have a proclivity for using the same tired old faces over and over again, which is a common occurrence amongst a certain class of individual).

A name that we chose not to mention in our earlier piece was that of Auckland “consultant” Graham Charles Hare.

Apparently, Mr Hare isn’t really practicing law these days, well that’s according to his own linkedin bio, at least law in the more commonly accepted sense of the word, rather Hare much prefers to be seen as a “consultant”.

Graham Hare was first spotted on LF’s radar whilst the team were researching a few earlier stories on Matthew John Blomfield’s highly questionable “business” manoeuvres, especially those surrounding his own bankruptcy.

At that time we discovered that a Maserati motor vehicle, that Blomfield owned, had some how managed to slip through the Official Assignee’s drag-net, whilst the AO’s office were trying to access and or locate Blomfield’s assets’. In fact the Maserati was one of those large assets that had appeared to just slip Blomfield’s mind as well, you know how it is, dementia can be a real bastard.

Although having said that we somehow doubt that Blomfield is absent-minded or even suffering from early onset dementia. When we tracked down the Maserati it had been through quite the Shamanic encounter, having shape-shifted, almost over night, into the hands of Blomfield’s “consultant” Graham Charles Hare. Incidentally Blomfield was sighted not so long ago driving the same vehicle whilst attending court in the Blomfield v Slater defamation case.

Now at the time LF suspected that Hare may have purchased the vehicle although we found no real evidence of that (nor apparently had the motor vehicle registry, hence the “Ownership unconfirmed” tag), so concluded that Hare had probably been acting as a frontman for Blomfield; so as to conceal the true ownership of the vehicle until such time as Blomfield had emerged from bankruptcy – one thing is certain, Blomfield clearly has an attachment to this particular vehicle.

Then there is the small matter of Blomfield having been banned from being a director and once out of bankruptcy being given a special exemption with respect to one company, Bell JR limited. In fact Blomfield himself took exception to the issue of his bankruptcy status being confused, often incorrectly reported by other media sources.

The upshot however is that Blomfield was not the only person associated with Bell JR limited, both Bruce Johnson, and Greame Hare have numbered among its directors, also another mysterious individual, one Paul Michael O’Connor. Incidentally both Paul O’Connor and Graham Hare are worth mention for another reason, both also, as it happens, are, as at April 2014, the registered owners of 7 Rame Road, Greenhithe, Auckland, a property that LF suspects may also have been concealed from the Official Assignee during Blomfields bankruptcy. Certainly Blomfield is currently living at that address, or at least was, as at the date of the now infamous visit Blomfield received from a gun totting Polynesian “Spiderman”

Interestingly both Matthew John Blomfield and Paul Michael O’Connor resigned as directors of Bell JR Limited on 20th March 2014, leaving only Graham Hare running the shop. The question is why did they resign, especially Blomfield, given he went to all the trouble of obtaining the required permissions?

However, on Tuesday the 12th May 2014, LF suspects in the afternoon, following both LF and the National Business Review, earlier that day, publishing articles questioning the integrity of the liquidation, and in particular a very suspect payment of $37’0000 to Central Park Legal, Graham Charles Hare, the sole remaining director of Bell JR Limited suddenly resigned, replaced by none other than Ronald Bruce Johnson the man who purportedly controls Central Park Legal’s Trust accounts….it’s all beginning to sound like a script from an episode of Falcon Crest.

In our story, published as aforesaid, earlier the same day, LF pointed out that, depending on the circumstances and where the money had actually gone, a criminal offence may have been committed, namely that of money laundering under s243 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961, had there in fact been a misappropriation of the $37’000; in the event that the recipient had not been legally entitled. Now LF are not for one minute suggesting that this has occurred in this case.

Hypothetically speaking, however, in such a case, it would be one hell of an incentive for the sole director of the recipient company to resign, especially if he or she had served as little more than a puppet or figurehead, with little or no control over what was happening, thus completely unaware of the aforesaid fraudulent acquisition of funds, lets say by way of fraudulent instrument, something like shonkey invoicing or a bullshit debenture, that the company actually had no legal entitlement too.

Back to the mysterious $37000’00 payment to Central Park Legal. LF suggested in our post of the 12 May 2014, that at the very least, the liquidator was duty bound to follow up on where the funds had actually gone, the issue of entitlement, and that in the event of the $37’000 having been transferred as a preferential payment or in any other manner that was unlawful, perhaps designed to defeat legitimate creditor claims, then the liquidator was duty bound to act in clawing that $37’000.00 back.

Whats also interesting about Mr Graham Hare is the fact that whilst he may well prefer the title “consultant”, his registration has his “legal practice”as being at none other than Central Park Legal, aka Ronald Bruce Johnson. Interestingly Hare also lists his mailing address as PO Box 258, Greenhithe, Auckland 0756, a post office box just up the road from 7 Rame Road, where Matthew John Blomfield resides, and a mailing address that Bruce Johnson has used when placing legal notices in the New Zealand Government Gazette.

It’s all very interesting. It seems there’s never a dull moment over at the Blomfield Mansion. LF will be keeping readers updated as and when information becomes available; as team LF’s ongoing investigation unfolds.

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