Fraud appeal fails

New Zealand's biggest benefit fraudster has lost the final round in his battle to have his eight-year jail sentence cut.

Wayne Thomas Patterson was sentenced after pleading guilty in the High Court at Auckland last year to using 123 different identities to con the Ministry of Social Development out of $3.48m between 2003 and 2006. Patterson went to the Court of Appeal in a bid to get his sentence reduced but the court rejected the bid.

Patterson's lawyer Chris Tennet argued the recovery of money by the Crown should have been a mitigating factor and that the victim impact report contained inadmissible material.