Disabled benefit fraudster fights to keep name secret

File photo / NZ Herald

A wheelchair-bound man is fighting to keep his name suppressed after admitting $50,000 of benefit fraud.

Continued suppression was refused by Judge Michael Radford for the 54-year-old man at his sentencing on seven charges in Christchurch District Court today.

The man received a six-month home detention sentence and was ordered to pay $5000 back to the Ministry of Health at $10 a week, but it is only a 10th of the amount he admitted defrauding through claims for home carer payments over about four years.

The man had admitted five charges of dishonestly using documents and two of forgery. They were representative charges referring to repeat offending. The man had pleaded guilty after the crown agreed that the representative charges could replace the original 157 individual charges.

As soon as the suppression was lifted, defence counsel Hamish Evans sought that it to be continued so he could appeal the decision in the High Court.

Judge Radford gave him until 4pm on Friday to file the appeal papers, and the suppression will continue until the case is heard. If the papers are not filed, it will lapse on Friday. Any appeal is unlikely to be heard before next year.

The Ministry of Health said it was acting on paperwork filed by the man - and trust - in making payments to him to pay for his home carers, but he was paying much less to the carers each payday.

Crown prosecutor Deirdre Elsmore cited one case where the ministry paid the man $48,000 for the work by a woman carer, who received only about $10,000.

Mr Evans urged Judge Radford to continue the suppression saying that his client faced significant issues in his life and was "on a knife edge in regard to his physical and mental health".

Judge Radford said the issues facing the man did not outweigh the public interest and he refused final suppression. He said the offending had been a significant breach of trust which went on over several years.

He noted that the man was a first offender.

Mr Evans had told the court his client was "effectively insolvent" and there was no suggestion of him living more than a subsistence lifestyle. He had no issues with addictions or gambling.

- NZPA