Professor Sir Ralph Heberley Ngatata Love on the opening day of his trial in the Wellington High Court. He is facing corruption charges in relation to his time as chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust.

One of the most influential figures in Maoridom is on trial charged with defrauding the iwi he once led.

Suppression orders covering Professor Sir Ralph Heberley "Ngatata" Love, once a leading Treaty of Waitangi settlement negotiator and Victoria University of Wellington Professor, lapsed on Wednesday, more than three years after he was charged with a raft of corruption charges.

Until now, none of the details of the prosecution have been able to be reported.

ANDREW LABBETT Sir Ngatata Love and Prime Minister John Key hongi after signing a treaty settlement covering the wider Wellington region in 2009.

The trial begins on Wednesday and is expected to last up to three weeks. Fairfax Media successfully challenged the suppression rulings in the High Court in June.

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Love pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial, with the public gallery almost full of his supporters.

SUPPLIED Sir Ngatata Love's long time partner Lorraine Skiffington. She was also set to face corruption charges but has been granted a permanent stay on account of her health.

Following a series of delays, Love faces just two charges, related to his time as chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust, where he stands accused of accepting a bribe.

In the 2009 New Year's Honours Love was named a Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, one of the highest awards possible, one notch below the exclusive Order of New Zealand.

Instead of receiving his award in Wellington, Love travelled to Buckingham Palace in London in November 2009, months after the National Government restored knighthoods, to be knighted by Prince Charles.

JOHN NICHOLSON/FAIRFAX NZ Matene Love, a Junior All Black and former Victoria University of Wellington senior lecturer has already pleaded guilty and served home detention for taking a secret commission on a similar transaction to that which his father, Sir Ngatata Love, is accused of taking.

Multiple sources claim he frequently spoke to then Prime Minister Helen Clark, acting as an informal consultant on issues affecting Maoridom.

Now Love stands accused of defrauding the iwi members he was knighted for serving.

Love is accused of taking two payments totalling a $1.5 million in late 2006 and early 2007, in exchange for showing favour to an Auckland property developer - Redwood Group - which was seeking to develop Tenths Trust land near Parliament. The payments were made through a company owned by his partner Lorraine Skiffington.

The Crown claims Love's fellow trustees were unaware of the payments and he and Skiffington later took steps to prevent the other trustees from discovering them.

The money was used to partially repay a loan taken by the pair to purchase a beachfront home in Plimmerton, the Crown will claim. The pair jointly own the house and until recently both lived there, along with one of Love's daughters.

In 2015 Sir Ngatata Love's son, Matene Love, a former Junior All Black and Victoria University of Wellington senior lecturer, pleaded guilty to a charge of accepting a secret commission from the same developer linked to the same transaction, although the sums involved were significantly smaller.

Matene Love served six months home detention in Palmerston North, but details of his offending remained suppressed until now.

In a Judge-alone trial (meaning there will be no jury), lawyers for the Crown will attempt to prove that Sir Ngatata Love obtained a pecuniary advantage by deception. If the Crown cannot do so, it will attempt to prove Love obtained a secret commission.

The payment, from Redwood Group, related to the development of a building, Pipitea House, which now houses the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet as well as the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) New Zealand's primary spy agencies.

The nature of the Secret Commissions Act means a prosecution cannot be launched without the consent of the Attorney General. The maximum penalty for offences under the statute is seven years in prison.

At one time, Love faced eight corruption charges, related to multiple transactions.

Some of the charges which have been dropped related Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, including allegations Love attempted to solicit a payment from film director Sir Peter Jackson as part of a plan to build a world class film museum at Shelly Bay.

The dropping of that charge avoids the prospect that Sir Peter - the linchpin of Wellington's film industry and one of the highest profile New Zealanders - would be required to appear as a witness in the trial.

Skiffington, a lawyer and former Beehive staffer - she was an advisor to former Attorney General Margaret Wilson - was also set to face charges related to the payments and other transactions involving Sir Ngatata, but has been granted a permanent stay on the proceedings on account of her ill health.

For years Love's name suppression has rested on Skiffington's ill health, but she abandoned her attempts for continued name suppression in July.

The trial comes years after allegations came to light.

On August 11 it will be four years since Fairfax revealed allegations of the payments from Redwood to Skiffington.

The payments first came to light during the criminal trial of former Wellington accountants Barrie James Skinner and David Ingram Rowley, who were convicted and handed the longest ever jail sentences in New Zealand history for tax fraud.

Skiffington appeared as a witness during the trial in her capacity as a former client of Skinner and Rowley.

Justice Stephen Kos, the judge in the trial, included in his judgement reference to accusation from Skinner and Rowley's lawyer that the payment was a secret commission designed to be concealed from the Wellington Tenths Trust.

Skiffington "absolutely" denied this was the case.

When the judgement became public Love stepped down as chairman of the Tenths Trust. In the following months he stepped down as chairman of the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, around the time the SFO confirmed it was investigating the activities of the trusts.