A Napier woman has been sentenced to two years and one month in jail for $167,000 of benefit fraud her lawyer says started "almost by accident" when she learned she had two names.
The explanation was given by Public Defence Service counsel James Rainger when he appeared in the Napier District Court yesterday for 57-year-old Pani Walker, also known as Matengaro Parata.
He said in 1993, after a violent marriage ended and she needed to get a driving licence, she obtained a copy of her birth certificate for the first time and learned the name she had always used was different from her registered one.
On a domestic purposes benefit, her life had "become a struggle", Mr Rainger said, and Walker decided to see "what would happen" if she applied for another benefit under her birth name.
Over the 19 years of offending she obtained about $75,000 in unemployment benefits and $73,000 in sickness benefits, along with accommodation supplements, training benefits, student and disability allowances and other benefits and grants.