Mum gets detention for fraud

A Hastings mother who stole more than $41,000 from the taxpayer was yesterday sentenced to four months' home detention and 270 hours' community work.

Anita Maree Gaylard, 27, appeared in Hastings District Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to nine charges of benefit fraud spanning five years.

She received a Domestic Purposes Benefit from 2005, and was in receipt of various benefits from that time onwards.

During the ensuing years she failed to advise the Ministry of Social Development of any changes in her living situation, and did not advise she continued to live with her husband.

As a result she received a total overpayment of $41,926.

Court summaries showed she used three aliases, including Anita Summer, Anita Tamasese and Anita Kenny.

No reparation order was made as she had arranged to repay the money.

Gaylard made headlines in March last year after travelling to quake-stricken Christchurch to volunteer at a food station. A month earlier she also attracted media attention after raffling a cake to raise $200 for multiple organ transplant survivor Matisse Reid.

The Ministry of Social Development's head of fraud, Mike Smith, said yesterday Gaylard had "faced the consequences of her actions".

"Perhaps Gaylard will spend some of her sentence thinking about this and about the people in her community who she's stolen from," Mr Smith said.