WELLINGTON (CU)_Disgraced millionaire Ronald Brierley, from New Zealand, has decided to surrender his knighthood, after pleading guilty for several charges of possessing material containing sexual abuse of children.
“The Clerk of the Executive Council wrote to him on April 6 2021 on behalf of the Prime Minister, giving him 30 days in which to provide any information that he considered relevant before the Prime Minister made her decision,” the Prime Minister’s office Wellington said in a statement. “Brierley may no longer use the title ‘Sir’, and he has been asked to return his insignia.”
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pointed out that regardless of his history, if the relevant individual possesses images which portray children being abused, it “undoubtedly completely rewrites your history”.
Speaking to media on Monday (3 May), PM Ardern further noted that if Brierley had not voluntarily surrendered his title, he would have been stripped of it. “[… ]I’m very clear – had he [not] done so it would have been removed,” she said.
According to the Prime Minister, the Queen has also been informed of the disgraced millionaire’s decision to tender his resignation as a Knight Bachelor.
Brierley was knighted in 1988 for his contribution to business and philanthropy, when his net worth was estimated to be $NZ220 million. The former chairman of the Bank of New Zealand was arrested in December 2019, at Sydney airport, and faced 17 charges of “large amounts of child abuse material”. He pled guilty for three of these charges last month while the remaining charges were withdrawn.
The 83-year-old millionaire now joins a list of public figures who have been stripped of royal honours, including Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, whose appointment as an Honorary Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was cancelled and annulled by the Queen last year.
