A bank picked up on the forgery and contacted Walker and Hall to stop the cheque. Faulkner then returned to Walker and Hall to ask for the jewellery back, to be told it had been seized by police.
At 8pm that day, Faulkner went to Auckland Central Police Station to reclaim the jewellery, where she was arrested for receiving.
Whangarei District Court Judge Murray Hunt also ordered Faulkner to pay reparation of $5000 to the victim, but acknowledged there was more than $50,000 of jewellery that had not been recovered.
"It just isn't good enough that the victim should be substantially out of pocket because of (Faulkner's) unwillingness to say who else was involved," Judge Hunt said.
In imposing reparation, the judge took into account that Faulkner received only $193 a week and had to pay child support for two children out of that sum. Judge Hunt said the key mitigating factor was that Faulkner's pattern of offending suggested she was "naive" and unlikely to have been the "ringleader" of the heist.
"It is only by the narrowest margin that you aren't going to prison today," he told Faulkner.
