Once the No 6 bus has negotiated the narrow suburban streets of South Dunedin it’s a straight run up Princes St into town.
For an experienced driver there is time to think, perhaps even time to dream.
What if the illuminated sign on the front didn’t say "Pine Hill"? What if it said "Beverly Hills"?
What if this wasn’t a 12,000kg people-mover, wheezing and lurching through traffic but a 30m super yacht slicing through the Santa Monica surf?
"He was jovial and funny, silver-tongued", fellow driver and best friend Kylie McMillan said.
"Anything he told you, you tended to believe."
So in late 2019, when Mr Parrett suggested they ditch their jobs and launch a new venture, one with serious earning potential, she quit work and they threw themelves into it.
The concept was simple.
"We were going to buy struggling hospitality businesses and put money into them, get them up and running and flick them off", Ms McMillan said.
With her qualifications in hospitality and his financial nous — "he always had a little side hustle he was working on" — there was cause for optimism.
Mr Parrett had $7m overseas that would soon be freed up to fund the operation.
But there were things Ms McMillan did not know.
The $7m did not exist.
The man she considered "an extended part of my family" had three decades of business blunders behind him and a string of fraud and dishonesty convictions between 1993 and 2009.
And there were things Ms McMillan could never have predicted.
She would spend four years chasing nearly $40,000 owed to her by Mr Parrett’s company Resque Corporation.
But before all that, things were idyllic.
"We had a business meeting at a cafe and went to the beach to debrief. I thought there was nothing better. I was working with my best friend and I got to hang out with him every day", Ms McMillan said.
A photo taken on the occasion shows her beaming while Mr Parrett throws up a casual peace sign.
They looked into buying a house for her in Port Chalmers, an Audi work vehicle, and she signed a $40-an-hour contract.
While things got off the ground, Mr Parrett suggested the company invested in "dropshipping", a business model where iteMs McMillan bought from an online store are sent directly to customers by manufacturers.
The Otago Daily Times has also seen a proposal compiled by a United Kingdom company in January 2020 for a pre-paid credit-card system to be funded by Resque Corp.
"We look forward to developing a mutually beneficial long-term relationship with you", it is signed off.
But, like other ideas, it never came to fruition.
As the weeks went by, Ms McMillan became increasingly concerned she was not being paid; the enthusiasm was wearing thin.
But the boss had an excuse. Well, several excuses.
It was tied up with the ombudsman, the federal government of Australia had seized it, it would be wired through in a couple of weeks.
Mr Parrett even sent Ms McMillan to his house to complete a funds transfer on his computer but when she arrived, burglars appeared to have got there first.
"They had apparently broken into his house and found the log-in details for his bank, which he left out for me, and drained his account", she said.
They had found an Otago golf club for sale.
"We were going to buy this property, turn it into a wedding venue and flick it off", Ms McMillan said.
They planned to call it "Bisons" and give it an American log-cabin feel.
A meeting was arranged with the owners and their agent but Mr Parrett made an inauspicious entrance.
"He said he would turn up in a Mercedes . . . but he got out the back of a woman’s blue car", the owners said.
"He was a rough-looking little bugger, nothing fancy about him at all. He was rather chubby and overweight."
Property Brokers sales consultant Albert Voschezang had learned not to judge people on their appearance.
The uber-rich do not always dress like it.
It was Mr Parrett’s words that confounded him.
Mr Voschezang asked him the standard questions about whether he needed to sell anything, whether he wanted to see the books.
"It’s just irrelevant", Mr Parrett said.
Mr Voschezang raised points about catering and the liquor licence but the man seemed disinterested in detail.
"You need to know about resource consents required to operate the place. He was just going ‘that’s not really necessary’", he said.
"He was keen but not asking the right questions or giving the right answers."
Mr Voschezang advised the owners — who spoke to the ODT on condition of anonymity — Mr Parrett was "not legit" which led them to the inevitable question.
If this was a ruse, how did it work?
"The thing I couldn’t work out was why he was doing it or how he was making money out of it", one of them said.
"He was going to pay the deposit. We didn’t have to pay him anything. He was doing it the wrong way round."
Mr Parrett’s former partner Catherine provided some answers.
"It’s a fantasy thing", she told the ODT before her recent death.
"It’s always delusions of grandeur . . . it’s like an addiction, almost."
So was there any chance her ex had millions of dollars languishing in an overseas account?
"No. It’s in his imagination", she said.
Ms Parrett detailed some of the "crazy ideas" he had pursued over the course of their marriage.
In the 1990s, she said, Mr Parrett flew to the United States, intending to buy a business.
He ended up broke and her parents had to stump up the cash for his flight home.
Mr Parrett also went to Buenos Aires for a month to look at a farm he planned to buy, which amounted to nothing.
There was the prospect of purchasing a rest-home, designs on refurbishing a grand old tumbledown property and "something to do with bobby calves".
Meanwhile, Ms Parrett said she had to go to food banks to feed the family and at one stage sold her $4000 mobility scooter for $250.
Despite that, Mr Parrett liked to brag he had a multimillion-dollar yacht called Pizzazz overseas.
No-one spoken to could verify its existence.
"It’s like when you’re playing a game; that’s what he’s doing starting up a new business", Ms Parrett said.
"It’s got to be known so he doesn’t hurt more people, because he’s done it for so many years."
A look at the New Zealand Companies Register revealed he had been director and shareholder of eight businesses.
Only one of them involved another person, aside from his ex-wife.
When the ODT contacted the former business partner and mentioned Mr Parrett’s name, there was a lengthy exhale.
"What’s he done now?" the man said.
He said he lost up to $100,000 in 2003, wrangling a deal for a frozen-chicken processing plant on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, which ultimately never came off.
Mr Parrett had letters of credit from the "top US banks" so the man flew over and completed a planning feasibility report.
He remained adamant the business model was solid, that they would have made money from the venture.
But when it came time for Mr Parrett to inject the cash, the deal was canned.
He too was confused as to what drove the man, but had some advice for anyone tempted to invest in his ideas.
"He’s burned a lot of people in Christchurch on false promises", he said.
"Just stay well clear and don’t believe his bulls..."
Ms McMillan, however, was unaware of Mr Parrett’s chequered history and once the Covid-19 crisis arose in early 2020 their friendship came to an abrupt end.
He left Dunedin for lockdown in Christchurch and the only contact the pair had was between lawyers.
After mediation, Mr Parrett signed a settlement agreement on behalf of Resque Corp stating Ms McMillan would be paid $28,000 before June 14, 2021. The due date came, and went.
Four months later, Ms McMillan took the case to the Employment Relations Authority to force compliance.
Mr Parrett said he had not paid up because of a "family relationship dispute" but he could make good on his promise by December "due to an anticipated tax refund".
The authority gave him two weeks.
Nothing.
Mr Parrett went to ground and in May 2023 when the matter had its next legal chapter, this time in the Employment Court, he did not show up.
Judge Kerry Smith said Resque Corp’s refusal to pay Ms McMillan was "egregious".
"The company has been noticeably silent but clearly puts its interests ahead of Ms McMillan ’s interests", he said.
"It is difficult to contemplate a more significant breach than one where an employee is left out of pocket for wages and holiday pay, which are at the heart of an employment relationship", the judge said.
He fined Resque Corp $15,000, $9000 of which was to go to Ms McMillan .
Less than two months after the scolding by the court, and facing a bill of $43,000, Mr Parrett called in liquidators.
A final report from September last year detailed the total assets of the company: a measly $3506.
The sum would only cover the liquidator’s fees.
"I find it so incredibly unfair that he can wipe his hands of it and leave me, the innocent party, with a legal bill", she said.
"I trusted him wholeheartedly and he just abused it."
Workplace lawyer Christie McGregor, a partner at the firm Copeland Ashcroft, said traditionally, directors were protected against financial liability like Mr Parrett had been, by the "corporate veil".
But there had been a growing trend of the Employment Relations Authority and the courts being willing to look behind that veil.
Ms McGregor said the change had been brought about by the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and a raft of case law in the employment jurisdiction which allowed directors to be joined with companies in legal proceedings filed by aggrieved employees.
"People aren’t wanting to sit back and wait to get money out of liquidation, for example, realising the reality is they may well miss out", she said.
Ms McMillan said she discussed with her lawyer going after Mr Parrett personally but became swamped by the legal process.
Mr Parrett remained in Christchurch and despite his business woes he was back on the horse.
In February 2023, months before Resque Corp was liquidated, he set up a new company: Tialoc Trading NZ Limited.
Its trading name is listed as "Mimo Cafe Coffee. While stock lasts", a google search of which fails to provide any further details.
And Mr Parrett was unwilling to elaborate when contacted by the ODT.
He also claimed, that because of the liquidation, it would now be "illegal" for him to pay Ms McMillan .
Mr Parrett said the timing of the call was inconvenient since he had just had part of his leg amputated.
"I fail to see how the collapse of my company and the loss of my limbs are newsworthy items for anyone in Otago", he said.
It was "a witch hunt", Mr Parrett said, "a vendetta".
For further comment, his lawyer would contact the ODT, he said.
The call never came.
