Looks dodgy

The Press reports:

Former ACT candidate John Peters travels New Zealand selling $20 pens, of which $5 from each goes to charity.

Since first appearing in The Press in May 2006, he had featured in other newspapers and was criticised in Parliament for his fundraising methods which included sitting in a chair, his legs apparently useless, to give the impression he was disabled.

When approached by The Press in City Mall on Friday, he said his current charity was the Disabled Children’s Trust, for which he had raised $20,000 over the past year.

He would not give a card or contact number for the trust’s director, saying it could be found on the internet.

Regardless of the charity a 75% commission is far far too much and looks to me like preying on people’s charitable impulses. And as for the charity:

However, internet searches found no trace of the trust except on the Companies Office website, which said it had been registered to Christchurch man David Williamson since 2002.

Williamson has another charitable trust registered under his name called the Hope for Children Charitable Foundation.

Williamson confirmed Peters’ claim that he had raised $20,000 for the Disabled Children’s Trust over the past year.

None of the money had been spent and it was sitting in a bank account, he said.

He planned to use it to buy wheelchair swings for Ferndale Special School in Merivale, which he said he had donated to in the past through a person he knew there.

Ferndale School chairwoman Annie Barnes said she had never heard of Williamson and, to her knowledge, the school had never received a donation from him.

The person he knew at the school had left three years ago.

Looks bloody dodgy to me.

ACT did not have Peters as a candidate in 2008 (he stood in Chch East in 2005), so presumably were also not too impressed with his methods. Nevertheless still an embarrassing association.