Te Poaka Tipua Charitable Trust founder Veronica Stuart has admitted to having previously run a men's sex club and also what she calls a gentlemen's club from the trust's current offices in Christchurch, Radio New Zealand reports.
Last week, reports surfaced of links between a men’s sex club and the charitable trust set up by Stuart to help troubled youth. The trust is now being investigated by Internal Affairs.
As recently as Tuesday night, a website claimed a men's sex club, known as the Backroom, was being run from the same address.
Stuart strenuously denied her drop-in centre was doubling as a men's sex club and said she only became aware of the website last week.
She said she had not spoken to the man behind the site, Nikora Nitro, since they fell out in December last year over how the youth trust was going to be run.
Stuart admitted to having previously run a men's sex club at another venue along with Nitro, and to have been running what she called a gentlemen's club from the building that now houses the drop-in centre.
But she said she wound up this business last year, long before she started running the youth centre.
The trust is now being investigated over Stuart's failure to declare a previous conviction for fraud, something a person running a trust is required to do.
She maintained she had nothing to hide and that she simply did not realise this was something she needed to do.