By Michelle Robinson And Victoria Robinson
The Press
July 27, 2011
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5350701/Former-vicar-in-missing-500k-probe
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| Jonathan Kirkpatrick |
An Anglican priest who served as a vicar in Christchurch, and who was the former lover of ex-Labour MP Tim Barnett, has resigned from his role as chief executive of AUT's business innovation centre in the face of "possible accounting discrepancies".
More than $500,000 is believed to be missing from the Government-funded Auckland University of Technology.
Rev Jonathan Kirkpatrick resigned in relation to "possible accounting discrepancies", AUT spokeswoman Barbara Bilcich said.
She said an internal investigation led to the discovery and the matter had been forwarded to the police.
AUT took a civil case against Kirkpatrick to the High Court at Auckland yesterday, although the university would not comment on what was being pursued.
AUT has ordered an urgent audit and staff are keeping quiet over the details except to say that police are investigating.
Kirkpatrick was a priest and in charge at St Alban's Church in Balmoral, central Auckland.
His assistant priest wass Reverend Philip Sallis, who is also the Pro Vice-Chancellor of AUT.
Sallis said he had no comment about the allegations against Kirkpatrick.
The Auckland bishop's media adviser, Vicar Jayson Rhodes, also declined to comment.
Detective Senior Sergeant Hywel Jones, of the Auckland police fraud squad, confirmed a complaint was laid on Monday.
Kirkpatrick is no longer chairman of Incubators New Zealand, an organisation that works to nurture newly formed companies and entrepreneurs. Incubators is aware of the investigation but refused to comment.
Barnett is in South Africa and could not be contacted, but former Labour MP Chris Carter said he had met Kirkpatrick when he was with Barnett.
"He was a dean, of course he was respectable," Carter said.
Kirkpatrick has a first-class honours degree in theology from the University of London and an MBA from the University of Otago.
He was ordained in London in 1985 after beginning his career as a church army officer.
After working in England he came to New Zealand with Barnett in 1991 to be the Vicar of St Michael and All Angels Church in Christchurch and was there for five years.
In 1996 he was made the 10th Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in Dunedin, working below the country's first female bishop, Penny Jamieson.
In 1998, when he was Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, he was involved in a car accident with Christchurch Central MP Barnett, his boyfriend at the time. Their car spun 40 metres off the road while they were driving from Invercargill to Dunedin. Kirkpatrick had surgery to pin a bone together in his lower back.
In 1998 he was part of a complaint against the television documentary Sex, Lies and Videotape about the dismissal of the director of music at St Paul's and subsequent walkout by all but one member of the all-male choir.
The reason for the dismissal was said to relate to the inappropriate conduct of the director in relation to choir members.
Kirkpatrick could not be reached for comment.
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