Who was the real Michael Swann?

Convicted fraud and now prison inmate Michael Swann (47) has received mixed reviews from people around Dunedin who have had dealings with him.

Some told the Otago Daily Times this week he was a good "yapper" who enjoyed trying to "pull a swifty".

Others consider him a loyal friend.

None approached by the ODT were willing to be identified - and much of what they had to say could not be verified.

But Swann's progress from Mornington Primary School, through John McGlashan College and the University of Otago and into the Dunedin business community could best be said to have been marked by clouds of smoke if not, until now, a great deal of fire.

Said one person: "I would describe him as one who is always trying to pull a swifty over the system."

Another made similar comments.

However, Justice Lyn Stevens, when sentencing Swann, referred several times to his "reasonably clear" record and noted only one previous dishonesty offence, for inaccurate recording of a hubometer.

Swann was born Michael Wilson.

He grew up in Dunedin with his mother, Marie, and his adopted father, Jim Swann.

Jim Swann was sales manager at Tablet Print, the 135-year-old firm that closed in 2007.

A friend said that on a trip to Sydney, he and Swann went to his birth father's house.

"I took him right to his door, but he never went in . . . You have to psych yourself up to meet the father you always knew you had but never met."

Swann and his father did meet eventually and "get on well, apparently", the friend said.

A focal point of Swann's trial was his "fleet" of luxury cars, boats and properties.

An acquaintance said that, having been bankrupted through his involvement in a new business making and marketing fertiliser, Swann was "broke in 1999".

"And then he started accumulating things, including Ferntree Lodge, with money he took from the hospital."

Crown counsel Robin Bates submitted the total amount obtained was $16,902,000 and was used to support "an extravagant and luxurious lifestyle".

Swann has been married twice and has four young children.

His wife, Anna Devereux, who married him in 1995 and is now separated from him, sat next to Swann's mother during yesterday's sentencing.

She would not speak to the ODT about Swann when approached earlier this week.

Ms Devereux returned from Australia at the end of last year and is now living in Ferntree Lodge, with a VX Landcruiser, a late-model Mercedes and another late-model car parked in the driveway.

During the trial, Ms Devereux told of Swann's passion for cars.

"Michael loves cars and one would turn into another, but that was his domain and I never asked where the money had come from to buy them."

The list included a Bentley, a Cadillac, Rolls-Royces, Porsches, a Mercedes Benz, and Land Rovers and Landcruisers.

The Serious Fraud Office told the court Swann paid $262,000 for a Porsche, later traded it for a Mercedes Benz, then paid $250,000 for the same Porsche.

And the court was also told Swann parked his Lamborghini in the health board car park.

Asked why Swann was so open about his luxury lifestyle, an acquaintance said he did not start out that way but "then he started telling stories" and the more people believed, the more blatant he became.

"He just continued to extend it more and more as he saw people were believing it."

A friend suggested this week that trading cars was a business exercise for Swann and, sometimes, the cars he bought through a dealer at wholesale rates were onsold without even being driven out of the yard.

Another acquaintance rejected the idea Swann was simply a dealer.

"He might have tried to classify it as a business for the Inland Revenue Department, but he just had a passion for those things and he was stealing enough money to support that passion."

And he believed the same applied to the half-a-dozen boats Swann bought.

One such vessel, Townsend Cromwell, which Swann said he bought for $800,000, is for sale in the Steamer Basin, in Dunedin.

A friend said the former research vessel was not a luxury craft as it had been portrayed in court.

He considered the cabins "mediocre" and said since it had arrived back in Dunedin from Fiji, rust had not been attended to.

Swann had renovated other boats.

"He would buy wrecks, basically, and do them up with $10-per-hour men and move them on and buy another."

He bought the former Wellington pilot boat Tiakina - now being restored by new owners - from the official assignee with "a very small cheque".

ODT business reporter Simon Hartley interviewed Swann on more than a dozen occasions, including about six times face-to-face.

Swann was always relaxed and confident and, on the fraud allegations, always in a "bullish" frame of mind, right through to midway through his trial, Mr Hartley said.

"He always stuck to the same story, going back almost a year before the trial, that he had provided the Otago District Health Board with a type of insurance service," Mr Hartley said.

An often used metaphor by Swann was "You don't go back to your house insurer and ask for your premium back when it doesn't burn down," Mr Hartley said.

While researching more than 80 stories on Swann, he encountered many people who considered him generous and thoughtful, through to several who described Swann as a bully with a split personality.

"He was always affable in meetings, but rarely missed the opportunity to loom over people," Mr Hartley said.

When making a point, he would stand stock still and eyeball people and then, suddenly, give a disarming smile, turn away and wave off the subject as if it were really of little interest.

Mr Hartley was aware of the numerous "soured" business deals and projects around Dunedin, going back several years, involving Swann.

It was one of those "soured" deals which lead to Swann's downfall, Mr Hartley said.

"After holding a grudge for more than a decade, there was a person who suddenly had access to an ear in the health sector.

''That conversation started the ball rolling and within months, Swann was facing the fraud charges," Mr Hartley said.

"There were [some] prominent Otago business names involved with Swann at various times - either using his services, cleaning up after him or making allegations against him - firing off warnings."

The court received 20 references and testimonials for Swann which spoke of his "high intelligence" and his "generous support".

His probation report noted Swann's father-in-law, and former colleague, considered Swann had faced trial by media and was a victim of civil harassment.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Justice Stevens said.

It also noted no harmful pattern of alcohol or drug use or gambling.

It considered Swann had "limited insight" into his offending but had expressed a degree of remorse.

Another person who knew Swann told the ODT people were taken in by Swann's charisma and believed his stories.

"He was very charismatic, very, very clever, and could also be very, very intimidating."

Justice Stevens referred to Swann's "aggressive conduct" towards health board staff when they were coming close to discovering his dishonesty.

One of Swann's friends said he was something of a "gentle giant" who "developed a sense that he had to provide for his friends", and his friends would not desert him.

"I don't know of anyone who's abandoned him amongst his friends.

''Not one."

Asked why not, he said: "It's complex . . .

''It could well be that what he was doing for that hospital . . .

''He still ran it [the computer system] . . . as cheap as any other hospital around, even with that money that he flogged - is alleged to have flogged.

"There was a whole lot said in the trial that never made it into the paper.

''The friends know all that; therefore, they haven't abandoned him."