After hearing nearly four hours of legal submissions yesterday, a judge has reserved his decision in sentencing Fiona Caroline Graham, sole director of embattled Wanaka Gym Ltd, when she appeared in the Queenstown District Court.
Graham was to be sentenced on 14 charges against her and her company brought by the Queenstown Lakes District Council over breaches of the Building Act.
But Judge David Holderness did not indicate when he would make a decision and ordered interim suppression on specific details of the case, saying suppression could be reviewed "in due course" at a later hearing.
Graham's lawyer, David McCaskill, lodged an application for a discharge without conviction for his client.
The Australian-born, Oxford University-educated anthropologist was last April found guilty by Judge Holderness of five charges against her and nine against the company.
Charges related to Wanaka Gym using the former gymnasium at 155 Tenby St, Wanaka as backpacker-style accommodation, when it was not safe in the event of fire, and for changes to the building consent which had not been approved, and for failure to correct those changes.
Four charges against Graham mirrored charges against Wanaka Gym and the fifth charge was she wilfully removed the council's dangerous building notice from the property.
Hearings were held in the Queenstown District Court by Judge Holderness between November 2 and 6 and on December 8 last year.
Yesterday, QLDC lawyer Richard Cunliffe said Graham had shown a "callous disregard" for the safety of people using the building and a "flagrant disregard for the law - bordering on contempt".
He described Graham as the "alter-ego of the company" and said any suggestion "she can absolve herself behind the corporate veil" served to lessen the seriousness of the offending.
But Mr McCaskill said the mirror charges faced by Graham were "very nearly analogous to double jeopardy" - the legal term for being tried twice for the same offence.
Council had tried to "blacken the defendant's reputation" in a case he said had a "long, and unfortunately sorry, history".
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times outside the court after the hearing, Graham said she would appeal the decision if she was convicted.
