Hamilton mother-of-five Pamela Cossill, 38, outside the Hamilton District Court today, where she was sentenced on fraud and theft charges totalling $203,394. Photo / Belinda Feek
A supermarket manager used her position to clock up loans from her employer’s account, steal gift cards, and tried to take out a $1.3 million home loan with her husband, who also worked there.
Former Mill St Pak’nSave store manager Pamela Ann Cossill was so determined to get a home loan for herself and her husband, Jonathan David Peachey, that she got her office manager to draft a fraudulent letter to ASB Bank stating she had paid back a staff loan.
The office manager refused to sign it, so Cossill signed it in her name, while Peachey sent the documents to the bank.
The home loan, for an “undisclosed reason”, was eventually declined by the bank, but her thefts from Pak’nSave stretched over the preceding five years and totalled $203,394.
That’s made up of $133,415 in loans, in which she made the repayments favourable to her and not the supermarket, and $69,979 worth of stolen gift cards.
The 38-year-old – who blamed her offending on her gambling addiction – appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing this afternoon on fraud and theft charges, as her counsel, Fiona Alamyar, tried to keep her out of jail by pushing for up to 80% in discounts.
That discount request raised the eyebrows of Judge Tini Clark, who described it as “staggeringly high”.
Peachey, 35, was sentenced in December last year to six weeks of community detention and 80 hours’ community work on one charge of using a document for pecuniary advantage.
Cossill had earlier admitted charges of forgery and using a document for pecuniary advantage, along with representative charges of obtaining by deception and theft by a person in a special relationship.
Cossill worked as the store manager from May 2018 until April 2024 and was responsible for day-to-day operations and about 270 employees.
Peachey was the dry goods manager at the same supermarket from 2020 until May 2024, and reported directly to his wife.
Between July 3, 2019, and March 8, 2024, Cossill used her position to obtain 37 loans, varying from $1000 to $12,000, to the value of $133,425 from the Pak’nSave Mill St bank account, without authorisation from the store owner.
For each loan, she set the repayments favourable to her rather than the business.
She has since paid back $36,945, and still owes $96,470.
Between July 23, 2021, and April 3, 2024, Cossill obtained gift cards on 23 occasions, to the value of $61,500, which were charged back to the supermarket bank account.
As the supermarket pays fees on the cards, the total of that theft was $69,979.
In February 2024, Cossill asked the office manager to draft a letter to ASB.
Cossill eventually signed it in that manager’s name using a made-up signature, and it was later sent to ASB for a mortgage application.
Earlier that month, Peachey used his Pak’nSave email address to email ASB the couple’s supporting documents for their $1.3m mortgage.
The attachments included previously altered payslips for them both, for three weeks in a row, deleting their staff home loan amounts. It also contained a false letter.
For “undisclosed reasons”, the application was declined.
Cossill eventually fessed up to her offending after being questioned by the store owner about the illegitimate gift cards.
Given Alamyar’s unusually high discount request, Judge Clark, dutifully questioned each section of her submissions.
After putting forward her 80% request, Judge Clark replied, “I have to say something about the level of discount.
“It’s not realistic.
“It’s not often I come across submissions seeking an 80% discount.”
Alamyar told the judge she was not bound by the 2025 legislation which restricted the court to a maximum of 40% in discounts as this offending preceded that.
The 80% comprised guilty plea, remorse, previous good character, gambling addiction, rehabilitation and Section 27 background issues.
She also had an array of information to back that up; letters from Cossill, her mother, Gamblers Anonymous, and Parentline.
Cossill had referred herself to Gamblers Anonymous straight after being busted and attended more than 200 sessions.
She’d also enrolled in a Bachelor of Counselling to help others in the future.
Alamyar said the offending wasn’t driven by Cossill’s “desire to maintain a particular lifestyle ... or her own sense of greed”.
But Judge Clark took issue with that, stating that the pair illegitimately tried to secure a home loan for a property that was beyond their means.
Alamyar said it was Peachey who was more “enthusiastic” about getting the mortgage.
Judge Clark replied that it was for a common benefit, and after reading Peachey’s file, that he’d said the application was more driven by his wife.
Alamyar reiterated that the driver of the offending was her gambling addiction and that she would spend her pay on gambling, and the illegally obtained money, and gift cards, to run their household.
She urged the judge to hand down a sentence of home detention.
In sentencing Cossill, Judge Clark found her “instrumental” in the ASB home loan offending, while she used her authority to try to persuade the office manager to sign a fraudulent letter.
“The office manager had the sense not to become involved ... in that deliberately misleading behaviour.”
She determined Cossill’s culpability as high and said it wasn’t just the amount of money involved, but the breach of trust, the length of time, and victim harm.
However, she didn’t have a victim impact statement, which would have been “helpful” for her to understand the level of harm Cossill’s offending had.
“I say that because when a manager lets down the side and ... puts pressure on others to support what she was doing, I think the harm that she has caused is much broader than the funds being lost.
“People were probably under suspicion until Ms Cossill was found as the culprit.
“Indeed, a lot of people, I’m sure, were left feeling utterly let down.”
The total amount of loss, $203,394, was a “significant amount of money”.
“For gambling ... but also for day-to-day expenses, she was spending almost everything she was gaining.”
Both Cossill and Peachey had separately penned to the court that they were doing well for themselves at the time of the offending.
“But how can that be so when the money does not even belong to you.
“I couldn’t understand that mindset, but it appears to be a common mindset between Ms Cossill and Mr Peachey.”
Judge Clark took an overall starting point of five years and four months before applying discounts totalling 55%, and getting down to 23 months.
“By the skin of her teeth”, she sentenced Cossill to 11 months’ home detention and warned her to stay away from gambling and to appreciate just how close she came to going to jail today.
She also ordered Cossill to pay back Pak’nSave the full $166,449 owed at $50 a week.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.