A teacher from a top Auckland school who used the identity of a Kiwi missing in the Australian outback to scam banks out of more than $67,400 will have to pay all the money back and spend his home detention in his home town of Whangarei.
Auckland Grammar School economics, accounting and business studies teacher Rafe Callum Fannin, 36, also took two of his colleagues' driving licences to fraudulently set up bank accounts in fake names.
Between September 2014 and June this year, Fannin swindled $67,408 from banks and finance companies and gambled it away.
His lawyer, Luke Wilson, suggested a reparation figure of more than $6000 would be appropriate, considering Fannin was jobless, but Judge David Harvey ordered the entire amount be repaid.
"This was by no means accidental. It was calculated, well thought out and contained a significant amount of premeditation," Judge Harvey said.
He sentenced Fannin to nine months' home detention, to be served in Whangarei. The teacher, who recently resigned but was suspended on paid leave while the matter went through court, previously admitted five charges of using a document for a pecuniary advantage and eight of obtaining by deception. Fannin's fraud spree began when he found out about Jamie Stephen Herdman through Facebook.
The Whakatane 26-year-old was last seen hitch-hiking in a remote area of Australia's Northern Territory in November 2006 and his vehicle was found abandoned by a pub.
Fannin got Herdman's birth certificate from the Department of Internal Affairs and used it, along with fake proof of address, to get a driver's licence in Herdman's name. From there, he got credit cards from three banks, which he used for an $8000 spend-up.
Fannin's offending became more sophisticated when he involved two men he taught with at Auckland Grammar, a top boys' school in Epsom. He took drivers' licences from their wallets and repeated his pattern of offending, opening bank accounts and getting credit cards in their names.
When Fannin was caught, at the end of June, he had racked up $67,408 in debt in other people's names. He told police he committed the crimes "to feed an addiction to online gambling". He said he intended to pay back the stolen money from his winnings and viewed the theft as "borrowing".
"But it wasn't anything like that, really," Judge Harvey said. "A person like you would be well aware the house always wins ... it would be extremely unlikely if not impossible you'd win enough gambling to pay the debts you had."
Fannin was declared bankrupt in February 2013.