The first Westerner to be accepted as a Japanese geisha "has no remorse" over convictions for using a former gymnasium in Wanaka as backpacker-style accommodation "because of her arrogant and aggressive attitude" towards the Queenstown Lakes District Council, Justice Christine French says.
Dr Fiona Caroline Graham, originally of Melbourne, was criticised for her "stubborn refusal to accept that the safety of persons sleeping in the building was compromised" in the reserved decision of Justice French dated February 27.
The council prosecuted property owner Graham and her company, the Wanaka Gym Ltd, for alleged offences under the Building Act in a saga that began 12 years ago.
Justice French said there had not been a vendetta by the council against the appellant and its concerns were legitimate.
District Court Judge David Holderness found all charges were proven, imposed fines totalling $64,000 and declined an application to discharge Graham without conviction in April 2010.
Graham and Wanaka Gym appealed the convictions and Graham appealed the sentence.
Justice French said she did not accept the points in support of the appeal had any real force and some points were not supported by the evidence.
She dismissed the appeals and declined the application for name suppression.
The decision said Graham was a social anthropologist with a special interest in Japan.
She had an impressive academic record and acquired international fame for becoming the first Western geisha.
Graham claimed the convictions would jeopardise her long-term visa renewal and her hope for permanent residency in Japan.
However, Justice French said for this to be true under Japanese immigration law, the offences would have to carry penalties of more than a year's jail, and they did not.
Graham's statement said in her application for discharge her battle with the council had almost bankrupted her and adversely affected her health.
However, Justice French said these were not consequences of the convictions "and it is wrong of her to say ... that all of it is the council's fault because the council wrongly refused to process her first building consent as a single household unit".
They were not jailable offences, Justice French said, but the offending was nevertheless "relatively serious".
She quoted council solicitor Richard Cunliffe when he pointed out during the hearing in Queenstown the residents of 155 Tenby St, Wanaka were "young, vulnerable people, many of them from overseas, who came to this country expecting our laws would protect them".
