Child's identity stolen by fraudster

A woman who stole a New Zealand child's identity from a gravestone and then defrauded an Australian welfare agency has been jailed for 18 months.

Judge Geoffrey Muecke at Adelaide district court said British-born Beaney Berlinsky assumed a false identity after she failed to gain residency in Australia.

He said she took the name of seven-year-old Alison McKenzie after seeing it on a gravestone in Christchurch in 1993.

She then used the name to obtain a New Zealand passport, a Medicare card and a tax file number, before moving to Australia.

Judge Muecke said she opened bank accounts using her false identity.

"It was submitted that you assumed the false identity for reasons which were unconnected with financial gain," he said.

"However, once you had done that and entered Australia on the basis of a lie, your life became a lie."

She pleaded guilty to four counts of defrauding the Australian government and one of dishonestly obtaining a gain, the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper reports. The agency Centrelink was defrauded of A$95,000 ($103,600).

In sentencing yesterday, Judge Muecke said while he accepted Berlinsky's case was "unique", she had made a "catastrophic mistake" in assuming a false identity.

"In assuming a dead child's identity you must have appreciated . . . the enormity in the consequences of that decision," he said.

He said the first offence occurred in December, 1994, when she made a claim for a Job Start allowance. "On the claim you referred to your country of citizenship as New Zealand (and) your proof of identity was (the) passport," he said.

"An allowance was granted and paid to you by direct credit to a bank account you had opened. You continued receiving social security payments . . . for eight years.

"You committed a sustained deceit until your fraud was discovered by the department of social security in March, 2003."

He said he had no doubt that Berlinsky, the mother of a son, 6, had "put in jeopardy the life you have built in Australia".

"I am also sure that you are sorry that your future with your young son is uncertain," he said.

Berlinsky had since repaid all the defrauded monies to Centrelink.

She was sentenced to 18 months' jail but will be released on a good behaviour bond after six.

- NZPA