It's That Man Again! - by Karen Davis

Our Hamilton readers may remember Stuff's three-year investigation of Chief Executive Mark Flowers's spending and conduct. Wintec is represented by Sam Hood, a Hamilton lawyer.

Our readers may also remember that Sam Hood represents the Rangiura Trust Board. They have been pursuing Allan Halse over a "non-identification order", which Sam Hood obtained after running a cover up of a payroll fraud by the former Rangiura general manager.

The fraud was reported to the Board by a clerk, so they called in Hood's colleague Erin Anderson. Allan Halse represented her when they went to a mediation that Hood and Anderson and the Board thought was so secret that offences committed in it would never be exposed.

Hood and Anderson then claimed that, as a result, they could pursue Allan Halse, at the expense and risk of Rangiura, in order to destroy his business. Mr Halse is a direct competitor of Sam Hood in Hamilton.

As part of Sam Hood's campaign against Allan Halse, MBIE employee Rachel Larmer ordered Halse to pay Hood $6,000 personally. Her 73-page judgment would expose New Zealand's legal system to international ridicule (or concern for Ms Larmer personally) if it wasn't already obviously ridiculous.

Sam Hood was exposed in court for tricking Judge Mark Perkins, but the judge didn't seem to know what to do when Sam Hood was exposed as having tricked him for years and based the whole case against Allan Halse on a "non-identification order" that doesn't exist in law.

Sam Hood is only one of the lawyers who have made a living out of tricking people for years. Now he's surfaced again, this time in the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

This is a privacy case brought by Paul Judge, a former lecturer in film production at Wintec, against Care Park Ltd, an Australian company that runs car parks.

In 2016, Care Park supplied Wintec with parking tickets, which Mr Judge said was in breach of his privacy rights. Mr Judge has taken his case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

Sam Hood's client, Wintec, used to employ Mr Judge. In 2016, Mr Judge says he was forced out by Wintec. Sam Hood now claims he has a right to intervene in the Human Rights Review Tribunal case between Mr Judge and Care Park. The Human Rights Review Tribunal has agreed to that. We are sure Sam Hood will bill Wintec (that means the taxpayer) for thousands of dollars, as usual.

But we are also sure that, one day, the New Zealand public are going to be fed up with lawyers that submit huge bills for taxpayer's money for no good reason, and with the tribunals and courts that let them. We think this behaviour is going to bite them all on the bum. For the sake of the taxpayers, we think it can't come too soon.