In a current High Court proceeding the engineering expert engaged by EQC, Dick Beetham from GHD Ltd, produced and enabled the filing in court what he entitled as a “joint report” by the parties’ engineers.  In fact it was not the version of the report agreed to and signed by the homeowner’s engineer.  Instead Mr Beetham had copied/cut the engineer’s signature and applied it to a different document and then enabled the document to be filed in Court representing it to be the agreed “joint report”.  Below is an extract from a Court minute about Mr Beetham’s conduct.  The conduct is currently the subject of complaints to IPENZ and CPENG.

 

[1] A most unsatisfactory thing has occurred on this file. The defendants’ expert, Mr Beetham, has submitted what purports to be a joint report written in conjunction with his colleague Ms Webb and more importantly, the plaintiffs’ expert, Mr McGill. There are two problems with what Mr Beetham has done. First, he has incorporated what appears to be an earlier draft version of material the experts had agreed on, rather than the final actual agreed version. Secondly, he has cut and pasted Mr McGill’s signature electronically to that misconceived report.