Home detention for $23k fraud

For every year Susan Rogers wrongfully collected a sickness benefit while working on a shearing gang she will spend a month on lockdown.

The 51-year-old, who pleaded guilty to one count of wilful omission and six of using a document for pecuniary advantage wrongfully claiming the benefit for five years, was overpaid $23,000.

In Masterton District Court on Tuesday, Judge Barbara Morris sentenced Rogers to five months' home detention.

Lawyer Jock Blathwayt had argued for community detention for his client on compassionate grounds because she supports a sister with a serious illness, taking her to Wellington Hospital and other medical appointments.

Judge Morris said there was no reason for the offending apart from financial and the pre-sentence report noted Rogers "didn't regard it as wrong at first".

The judge said while she had sympathy for Rogers' sister being ill, the starting point for sentencing had to be imprisonment because of the length of the offending and the amount involved.

"The starting point must be imprisonment to serve as a deterrent.

"This was significant fraud over a number of years involving a large amount of money. It has not been paid back," she said.

Rogers had pleaded guilty and now accepted responsibility, the judge said.

"While I have much sympathy for your position ... the offending is such that community detention is not available."