An Ōtorohanga woman fell out of her chair on learning her sentence on fraud and other charges last week.
A CONVICTED fraudster literally fell out of her seat at Hamilton District Court on Friday when she learned she was not going to prison. The Ōtorohanga woman, who has name suppression, was convicted in May of 17 charges relating to three separate incidents after being found guilty by Judge Paul Mabey at a judge-alone trial. She was charged with five counts each of altering a document with intent to deceive and using an altered document with intent to deceive, three of forgery, two of using a forged document, and one each of dishonesty using a document, and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The charges stretch back to 2016 and 2018. The woman, aged in her early 40s, escaped a prison sentence due to personal circumstances including having a severely ill child in her care. Judge Mabey said he did not think justice required her to go to prison and instead sentenced her to 12 months’ home detention, with a further nine months’ post-detention conditions. According to the police summary of facts provided to media, the first grouping of charges related to tenancy tribunal proceedings held at a district court in mid-2018. The defendant had moved into a house bus parked on a close friend’s property, but when the relationship soured, she was asked to vacate it. In response, the defendant took the case to the Tenancy Tribunal, which she won. It was later discovered some of the defendant’s evidence was forged or altered with the intention of deceiving the tribunal. Two charges each of forgery and using a forged document resulted after she created two fictitious emails and conversations with a friend and an acquaintance. Both conversations attacked her former friend’s character. The defendant had legitimate email conversations with different organisations in four other instances, but added comments to make it appear as if the victim had a history of animal abuse and sexual violence when those comments were not in the original emails. She forwarded the altered conversations to the tribunal for use as evidence. The defendant’s former friend was also the victim in the 13th charge against her of dishonestly using a document. The summary of facts said he had purchased a horse float in 2016 for $3000 with the intention that he and the defendant would share it. About a year into the arrangement, the defendant asked her friend if he would sell the float to her. Before she made any payment, the defendant registered the float in her name and insured it for $4000. When their relationship fell apart a few months later, the friend put the float back into his name because he had still not received any payment. Five months after ownership was transferred back to her former friend, the defendant claimed to the insurance company that the float had been stolen, when she knew it had not been. She told the company she had paid her former friend $3000 for the float and named him as the person she suspected had stolen it from her. The defendant was also charged with forgery and attempting to pervert the course of justice after an incident in 2016 when, during a Disputes Tribunal hearing about the ownership of a car, she attempted to prevent her opponent from appearing at court. Prior to the proceedings being filed, a young man bought an unregistered and unwarranted car online. The defendant contacted him via Facebook and told him the vehicle he purchased was stolen and she wanted it back. When the man sought advice from police, he was assured the vehicle was not stolen and was lawfully his. The defendant filed proceedings at the Disputes Tribunal and less than two weeks before he was due to appear in court, the man received a message on Facebook from a profile unknown to him to say he no longer had to be at court. The message was followed a week later by what appeared to be a formal letter from the Ministry of Justice, but with a handwritten envelope. The official-looking letter advised the man the hearing had been adjourned and appeared to have been signed by a court registrar. The man phoned the court and was informed the hearing was still going ahead. He attended, as did the defendant. Police inquiries found the court registrar whose name and signature was used, had nothing to do with the letter. The defendant denied knowing anything about it, but forensic fingerprint examination identified her fingerprints on the fraudulent letter. The defendant was also found to have altered documents and used them as evidence at the hearing. She altered an email chain from the New Zealand Transport Agency to make it appear as if the agency confirmed the vehicle legally belonged to her, when it had not done so. After five days of hearing evidence at trial, the judge found the defendant guilty on all charges. In his decision notes, Judge Mabey described the defendant as a witness lacking credibility and said her explanations defied logic. “She gave evidence that was unrealistic and implausible, she attempted to divert responsibility from herself to others and made regular claims to a learning difficulty that would render her incapable of carrying out the acts alleged by the Crown. “She defeated herself in that regard by demonstrating a good command of the English language coupled with the ability to think quickly, and I observed from the bench the numerous notes that she was writing to defence counsel.” Judge Mabey heard sentencing submissions last week from Crown prosecutor Bayden Harris and defence lawyer Megan Dempster. The prosecutor submitted that nothing short of imprisonment would be appropriate for the “repetitive, calculated and premeditated” offending. “This is offending that strikes at the heart of justice.” For the 12 charges relating to the Tenancy Tribunal proceedings, Harris submitted a start point of 26 months’ imprisonment, with an uplift of 12 months to allow for totality with the other charges. Defence counsel submitted a start point of 15 months’ imprisonment and an uplift of eight months for totality. Her client had multiple children in her care, one who is severely ill, she said. She was no longer working because she had been stood down because of the proceedings, Dempster said. While the children’s father was in their lives, she said, he worked full time with a job that did not allow him to care for them. She said if the defendant were to go to prison, her husband would struggle to care for the children. Judge Mabey set a start point of two years’ imprisonment to encapsulate the gravity of the offending. Because she continued to maintain her innocence, which the judge said she was entitled to do, she received no credit for remorse. He noted aggravating features of the offending including that it was premeditated, the degree of sophistication, it was motivated by personal gain, and the impact on the victim. Judge Mabey said the victim from the first 13 charges had suffered stress and strain, was withdrawn and wanted the defendant out of his life. “He tried to help someone who turned on him. He is a victim in every sense of the law.” Nine months was added to the start point for the attempting to pervert the course of justice charge, to reach 33 months in jail. “People who attempt to pervert or interfere with justice strike at the heart of justice and need to be dealt with severely,” the judge said. To the defendant’s credit, she had a previously unblemished record, and Judge Mabey reduced the start point to 30 months. He said the impact on children was a “very relevant” factor in determining a sentence and reduced it to 24 months’ imprisonment, which allowed for the imposition of a home detention sentence.
