MP's mum has sentence reduced

Beverly Anne Sepuloni in the dock today. Photo / Jim Tucker

The amount of media attention given to a benefit fraud case has resulted in a district court judge reducing the sentence by three months.

Judge Chris Sygrove told Beverley Anne Sepuloni - mother of MP Carmel Sepuloni - her case was unlike most benefit cases he dealt with, which flew under what he called the "press radar".

Accordingly, he reduced the starting point of her sentence from 15 to 12 months on 19 benefit dishonesty charges arising from her not advising the Social Welfare Ministry she had entered a defacto relationship.

For defrauding the Ministry of nearly $34,000, he gave her a sentence of four and a half months' home detention.

He said other mitigating circumstance - including her clean record, early guilty plea and show of remorse - cut the starting-point sentence further to nine months' jail.

The judge then accepted the pre-sentencing report recommendation that the jail sentence be converted to home detention. Sepuloni must also do 250 hours of community work and repay $15,000 at the rate of $20 a week.

The judge said society demanded serious consequences for this type of offending.

The benefit system relied on beneficiaries acting honestly and in good faith, but became inoperable in cases where people took advantage.

The pre-sentencing report said Sepuloni claimed not to have enhanced her lifestyle, although the judge noted she helped her co-offender, Michael Charles Rangi, buy three cars during the period of offending.

The report said the defendant expressed remorse and was particularly upset at the effects on her daughter.

Earlier, Rangi was sentenced to six months home detention, which was reduced from a starting-point sentence of 18 months' jail by various mitigating circumstances.

These included his clean record, diminished intellectual capacity (worth a two months reduction), and his guilty plea at the earliest opportunity (four months).

Both the Social Welfare Ministry and Rangi's lawyer proposed home detention as a better option than jail, and this was accepted by the judge.

Rangi must repay $15,000 at the rate of $20 a week, and undertake 200 hours of community work.