On 24 March the New Zealand Association for Teaching English (NZATE) has won its case against its former president, Yvette Swartz, for defrauding the organisation, according to stuff.co.nz.
Sentencing will take place on 3 June, when Swartz will be looking for a discharge without conviction. The charges against her total NZ$2,810, which comes from expenses claims for hotel stays, flights and taxis that either never happened or were used by relatives.
Her explanation, that she is “terrible at paperwork” and hadn’t established a working system for claiming expenses, didn’t hold sway with Judge Alistair Garland, who sat at the Christchurch District Court for the hearing.
Swartz held the post of NZATE president from 2017 until March 2020, but during this time also had employment at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Ministry of Education. The school where she currently teaches isn’t being released.
“We are confident that we are maintaining the appropriate safeguards and accountability for the control of our financial resources,” current NZATE president, Jacq Gilbert said in a statement.
