Deaf charity hit by fraud

Former Hearing Association office manager Leanne French pleaded guilty to 21 separate fraud charges. Photo / Wairarapa Times-Age

Leanne French was once respected for her work with the charitable Hearing Association, raising money to help deaf people.

Now, the stylishly-dressed bookkeeper has admitted stealing $282,000 while working for the charity in Auckland, to fund a secret gambling habit.

As she broke down in tears, a judge was told she had put the hearing of a generation of young New Zealanders at risk.

In Masterton District Court this week, Leanne Cheryl French, 52, was sentenced to 12 months' home detention for defrauding the association between 2004 and 2009.

French was a bookkeeper, office manager and treasurer for the organisation in Auckland, before she moved to Masterton. Now she is bankrupt.

She pleaded guilty in December to six charges of using a document to defraud, five charges of forgery, five of using forged documents and five of making false accounts.

Through a bank error French had become the sole signatory for Hearing Association cheques, and had forged 143 cheques to place in accounts in her own name.

She had also forged independent annual audits, using a false name.

Reading a victim impact statement, Hearing Association board member Stewart Keen told French her victims included a "whole generation of people" not exposed to messages that could prevent hearing loss.

Many notices warning of "noise-induced hearing loss" had not been placed in schools, workplaces and public motels because of lack of funds.

Keen said French's fraud was calculated and "undermined public confidence in charities generally", making it more difficult for them to raise donations.

French looked distraught and broke down in tears as the victim impact statement was read.

Her lawyer, Louise Elder, said family circumstances were behind the offending. One incident had been a "source of great distress" and had "set off a chain of events which resulted in this offending, and which led to Ms French developing a gambling addiction".

Elder said French was "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

She had paid back $106,000 to the association, leaving a net loss of $176,000. However, that $106,000 was subject to legal claims from two other sources: her husband, who said it was matrimonial property, and the Official Assignee, who claimed she gave the Hearing Association "preference over other creditors".

French also claimed she had paid more than $30,000 extra back, of which the Hearing Association had no record.

Judge Tuohy said because the victim had been a charity, "that makes the breach of trust worse, in my view".

In addition to 12 months' home detention, Judge Tuohy sentenced French to 300 hours' community work and ordered her to pay reparation of $8000, at $50 a week for five years.

- WAIRARAPA TIMES-AGE