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Taito Phillip Field - Source: ONE News -
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The crown's case against former MP Taito Phillip Field remained simple and straightforward despite the length of his corruption and bribery trial, an Auckland jury has been told.
Crown prosecutor Simon Moore SC made the comment at the start of his closing submissions, three months to the day after the case began in the High Court.
He said that, back in April, he had made the same statement in his opening submissions and nothing had changed even though the trial was entering its fourth month and there had been nearly 4000 pages of evidence.
"It might have taken us a while to get here," he said.
"But the core allegations the crown raises remain the same."
Field, the MP for Mangere between 1993 and 2008, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges of bribery and corruption and 23 counts of wilfully attempting to obstruct or pervert the course of justice.
Moore said the core allegations were that Field abused his position as an MP and as a senior member of the government by accepting free labour on seven houses in return for immigration help he gave.
He said Field began modestly in late 2002 and early 2003, when a couple of clients he had helped thanked him by doing some plastering and ceiling work.
A fee was paid not for the labour, just for the cost of the materials.
By early 2005, Field had had work done on five other houses in New Zealand and was about to embark on his most ambitious project, a retirement home in Samoa.
Moore said the Thai men and women who worked for Field felt they owed him a huge debt of gratitude for being able to help them with immigration issues where others had failed.
He said they amounted to Field's personal workforce and they toiled away at night and at weekends.
Field didn't tell the associate minister of immigration, to whom he made representations on behalf of the workers, or even his own secretary about the labour done on the houses.
"It was his secret," Moore said.
"He did not tell anyone because he knew it was a bribe."
The grandness of his final venture caught up with him and Field had "killed his golden goose".
The resulting "media frenzy" in 2005 meant then prime minister Helen Clark had no choice but to set up an inquiry, headed by barrister Noel Ingram QC, into Field's conduct.
Moore said that, if Field had truly co-operated with the inquiry, as he had said he would, "he would not be in the extent of the trouble he is in now".
Instead, Field misled police with "blunt lies", created false documents and told the inquiry only as much as he thought they knew.
Moore said Field shifted his story so it became an evolving one, and he continued to do so up to his appearance in the witness box during his trial.
"Even from the witness box, we got brand new versions of things he was asked way back in the Ingram inquiry," he said.
"We got new versions when he was cross-examined."
Moore is expected to take two days for his closing submissions as he summarises the evidence relating to each charge.
