Today a front page Dominion Post report has called into question an appeal submission by jailed fraudster David Ross‘s lawyer, Gary Turkington, against his client’s sentence of a minimum parole period of five years five months as being “unreasonably crushing” and “manifestly excessive”. Turkington, presenting his case to three Court Judges [see note. 1], questioning the point of such a lengthy minimum term imposed by District Court Judge Denys Barry at Ross’s sentencing on 15 November 2013, for a man in his “twilight years”, and Ross, 64, dwelling without hope in prison. “He’ll emerge with nothing”, he said, as he sought a minimum non-parole period of four years.

The Dompost report has highlighted the fact that Ross’s wife, Jillian Elizabeth Ross, who was jointly indebted with him to Ross Asset Management Ltd (RAM) for $3.49 m, when the company collapsed, has recently bought a four-bedroom two bathroom Lower Hutt home with her brother for $725,00, after she pocketed nearly $900,000 from the sale of the family’s former $2.2m mansion at 105 Woburn Rd, Lower Hutt. [Read more…]