Lake Taupō Hospice Trust chief executive officer Christine Rankin says former retail operations manager Mark Wisniewski’s theft of an estimated $62,600 from the charity over a six-year period was an enormous breach of trust.
“It is criminal. It's abhorrent. And everybody has suffered in the organization,” she told LakeFM following 64-year-old Wisniewski’s admission that he had systematically removed cash from shop takings between 2018 and 2024 and altered documents to cover the theft.
On Wednesday Wisniewski was remanded on bail to appear for sentencing on July 7 at the Taupō District Court.
Rankin said she could understand why people would be angry.
“And so they should be.”
It was a betrayal for everyone, she said, from patients and their whānau and families to volunteers and “everybody that has anything to do with the magnificent organisation that is hospice.”
Awareness of Wisniewski’s offending came via a confession following hospice instigating a new audit process.
Rankin said he had been a loved, respected and admired manager at the time.
“He's highly regarded in the community or was... There was not one ounce of suspicion that anything was happening at all. And we'd had very thorough audit processes before… but no, it was very cleverly done, and we hadn't picked up anything.”
She admitted to being gobsmacked by his confession.
“I actually rang home and said, ‘I'm in shock. I feel like I'm going to wake up soon, that this is a really bad dream. In fact, it's a nightmare. I can't believe this is true.’ But unfortunately, it was and is true.”
The repercussions had affected the organisation for months.
“First there was disbelief, and then there was just pain, real pain over what had happened.”
Despite the financial loss, Rankin did not believe the theft had impacted their services.
“The staff, the clinical staff, the volunteers at the shop, and the shop managers that reported to him, they have just done a magnificent job through the tragedy of it because that's how it's felt to us.”
New internal controls and safeguards implemented by hospice included a completely renewed camera system and new till systems, she said, and a simplified but still very thorough banking process.
“You can't get insurance unless you have done everything you are supposed to do in the lead-up to a crime like this, and we did get insurance… but fresh eyes and a fresh perspective just put a different emphasis on what we asked and what we looked at, and that drove the confession to the surface.”
An offer from Wisniewski in court to pay $62,600 in reparation would go to the trust’s insurance company, the court heard, which had already paid that amount to hospice.
However, said Rankin, there were also other costs.
“Auditor's costs, for example, are very high, and they do a great job. I'm not saying those costs are inappropriate. It's just that it costs a lot to get it audited.”
She said the new measures in Taupō would also be implemented in Tūrangi.
“We had a pretty good system before we thought, but if an individual is determined to do something, there are ways to do it. If you're clever, there are ways to do it, but we have now put every single thing that we can think of in place to stop it ever happening again… We appreciate every bit of support from our community, and the community is magnificent to us. So, this is a real betrayal, and it's been a betrayal to everybody involved.”
