Fraudster who stole babies' identities loses appeal

File photo / NZ Herald

A man who stole the identities of dead infants to commit benefit fraud gave himself up after 16 years on the run in South America.

David John Rogers contacted the New Zealand authorities in 2008 from Brazil saying he wanted to come home to face the music.

On his arrival at the airport he was promptly arrested and subsequently jailed for three years after admitting 51 charges of using a document to obtain pecuniary advantage, three charges of obtaining a document to obtain pecuniary advantage and one charge of obtaining by false pretences.

The Court of Appeal, in a reserved judgment, has now rejected Rogers' appeal against the length of his sentence.

The appeal judges heard that Rogers used the identities of three children who had died in infancy to obtain welfare payments, mostly unemployment benefits, by impersonation from March 1989 to September 1992.

He had also obtained benefits for another person who was not entitled to them as he was living overseas.

The benefit fraud came to light when Rogers was arrested for unrelated offending involving using ATM machines to withdraw money from the bank accounts of two other deceased people.

While on bail, Rogers impersonated yet another dead person to obtain a false passport to flee New Zealand.

The sums defrauded amounted to $270,000 at today's value, of which Rogers' share was $127,000.

In Auckland District Court, Judge Josephine Bouchier imposed a three-year term after taking into account various factors including $10,000 reparation that Rogers raised from friends.

On appeal, Auckland lawyer Jim Boyack said that Judge Bouchier's four-year starting point was too high and her 25 per cent discount for the reparation, Rogers' voluntary return and his pleas of guilty was too low.

The appeal judges accepted that the four-year starting point was "stern," "only just available" to the judge and "at the top end of the available range".

However, they said that they could see no principled basis on which Rogers could be treated as being any better off because he managed to abscond successfully than he would have been if he had been arrested at the airport back in 1993.

"The reality is that the appellant should have pleaded guilty to the fraud offending at the first reasonable opportunity, served whatever sentence was imposed and then led an exemplary life.

"It would be entirely wrong to give credence to the notion that an offender, by absconding, can avoid the essential step of serving a sentence which is appropriate for the offending, particularly when the absconding involves the commission of further serious offending (in this case passport fraud)," the judges said.

They observed that the relatives of the dead infants were understandably distressed by Rogers' behaviour.

They also noted that Rogers had lived a "largely blameless life" in South America, though they observed that in 1996 he attempted unsuccessfully to obtain yet another false passport through the New Zealand High Commission in India.

- NZPA