60 Minutes Unmasks Senior Defence Force Official as a Cheat and Liar

Last night a 60 Minutes investigation unmasked a senior Defence Force official as a CV cheat and liar.

The official, whose position requires him to have one of the highest security classifications, has made wild claims about his background, including that he had a distinguished combat career and was an Olympian.

He was hired by the NZDF despite having been pushed out of a series of jobs.

60 Minutes reporter Paula Penfold went undercover to expose the official’s lies. Armed with what he’d told her, 60 Minutes was able to check his employment history going back 20 years.

The programme revealed:

- how the official has claimed to have been a member of the British Olympic bobsleigh team in the 1980s. No one from the team or the British Bobsleigh Association has ever heard of him.
- Despite his claims to have been a Royal Marine, no record of him ever having been so exists. No evidence supports his claims to have been decorated in battle either.
- Despite what he says on his CV, his employment history going back to 1990 is far from impressive with previous employers concerned about his dishonesty and lack of performance.
- He vanished from one chief executive role after being challenged about the veracity of his background.
- Immediately before rising to his current job leading 80 people, he was chief executive of a small Australian housing company in charge of about 10 people. They jokingly called him a rocket scientist because of what he’d told them about his past.

The official solely represents New Zealand on a strategic international defence committee. A former employee told 60 Minutes the official is not capable of doing the job and is damaging New Zealand’s defence relationships with its allies.

Other people who have had dealings with him in the past tell the programme they cannot believe he holds the position he does.

So how did he get such a senior role in the New Zealand Defence Force?

ENDS

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