Woman jailed after 19 year benefit fraud

A Napier woman has been sentenced to two years and one month in jail for $167,000 of benefit fraud her lawyer says started "almost by accident" when she learned she had two names.

The explanation was given by Public Defence Service counsel James Rainger when he appeared in the Napier District Court yesterday for 57-year-old Pani Walker, also known as Matengaro Parata.

He said in 1993, after a violent marriage ended and she needed to get a driving licence, she obtained a copy of her birth certificate for the first time and learned the name she had always used was different from her registered one.

On a domestic purposes benefit, her life had "become a struggle", Mr Rainger said, and Walker decided to see "what would happen" if she applied for another benefit under her birth name.

Over the 19 years of offending she obtained about $75,000 in unemployment benefits and $73,000 in sickness benefits, along with accommodation supplements, training benefits, student and disability allowances and other benefits and grants.

It ended in February this year and Walker admitted the offences when interviewed by Ministry of Social Development investigators.

While pleased Walker has begun repaying the money at $30 a week, Judge Richard Watson estimated it would be 2073 before the debt could be cleared.

"Clearly it will never repay the full amount that was stolen by you," he said, emphasising the need for a penalty which would denounce the fraud, and turning down a recommendation for home detention for Walker, who was said to be caring for her ill partner and her son.

While Mr Rainger said it would be "devastating" for them not to have her at home, the judge said he could not get the sentence down below a two-year threshhold at which home detention can be considered as an option to imprisonment.

MSD staff counsel Paul Frost said the contention that Walker's conviction-free past could be a mitigating factor was irrelevant, with the length of time over which the frauds had taken place.

It was the second of three sentencings within a month for Napier and Hastings women who have each admitted extended six-figure benefit fraud. A fortnight ago a 67-year-old, who also admitted double-dipping in obtaining more than $128,000 in a fraud lasting 11 years, was sentenced to 11 months' home detention while another woman, 52, appears in the Hastings District Court on August 22, over about 10 years of fraud which the MSD says netted about $113,000.

Ministry deputy chief executive Iona Holsted welcomed yesterday's jail sentence, saying Walker had gone to "considerable lengths" to deceive the ministry, but was found out by its intelligence unit. "This type of offending can't happen today."