Westpac runaway guilty on 30 charges
By Jamie Morton
Got pay it back $75 a week
Kara Hurring has been barred from applying for a passport. Photo / Alan Gibson
Kara Hurring was doomed from the moment she began spending Westpac Bank's missing cash, says the former flatmate who took the stand against her this week.
A sleekly dressed Hurring - who appeared sophisticated and at times even sweet during the four-day trial - began to lose composure as the jury foreman answered "guilty" to all of the 30 charges police laid against her.
The verdicts came within an hour of deliberation and about three years after Westpac mistakenly extended the overdraft of her partner Hui Gao's business account to $10 million.
Bianca Taute told the Weekend Herald she vividly remembers the night of April 21, 2009, when she arrived home at the York St, Rotorua, flat she shared with Hurring and Gao, and seeing the extra zeroes on Gao's online bank account.
"I'm f***ing rich, I've got $10 million," Gao was said to have yelled amid excited hoots.
"Like I said, you don't forget something like that," said Ms Taute, a teacher now living in Hamilton.
She had told the court how Hurring saw the error on Gao's computer screen and was completely aware of what happened, and how the couple offered her $50,000 to teach Hurring's daughter Lena, telling her she would never have to teach again.
During summing up yesterday, Ms Taute shook her head as Judge Philip Cooper reminded jurors that Hurring claimed to have no knowledge of the money being Westpac's until seeing it on the news while in China.
"It didn't make me angry ... I just know the truth, that she saw it, that's all I know," she said afterwards.
"I think it was inevitable it was going to come to this, once they were gone and everything."
When she gave evidence on Tuesday afternoon - directly facing a stone-faced Hurring - it was the first time in years Ms Taute had seen her old flatmate.
She described the experience as "uncomfortable", but said the two were as close as only flatmates can be.
"I kind of wish it hadn't come to that, but I did say to them that day that this mistake is going to [come back to haunt them]."
Hurring faced two sets of charges, the first combining 25 counts of theft and three counts of attempting to dishonestly use a document, over using an ASB bank card loaded with tens of thousands of dollars in a four-day spending spree in Auckland.
The court had heard she used it to shop at chain stores including Pumpkin Patch, Overland, Dick Smith and Farmers - and to snack at McDonald's.
After joining Gao in China, and sailing on to Macau, Hurring was then accused of laundering more than $1 million at a casino.
Westpac - alerted to the blunder by a mysterious tip-off from China the day after Hurring left the country, leaving Gao's ute parked at Auckland Airport - triggered a global manhunt that eventually ended with the couple's separate arrests last year.
Crown prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch said yesterday's outcome reflected "a bit of hard work by everybody involved".
"I am surprised at how far this story's gone overseas, but I suppose there is some interest ... and I accept that."
Detective Inspector Mark Loper, who headed the case, declined to comment.
Outside court, Hurring could only say she was "relieved" when asked how she felt.
Her lawyer, Simon Lance, said Hurring was "obviously disappointed" at the verdicts.
But she was happy that the more serious charges she had earlier faced when returning to the country had been dismissed.
"We were hopeful the jury might have looked more favourably in relation to those allegations that were centred around the Macau transactions, but that wasn't to be the case."
He told reporters: "The saga's over."
But the saga won't be over until Hurring, whose bail conditions bar her from applying for another passport, is sentenced on August 24.
Gao, facing 16 charges, is back in court next week.
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