A Melbourne mum who ripped off Medicare by means of her employer, stealing $180,000 as a result of she was indignant about working unpaid hours, has had her sentence delayed.
Sarah Ward, 31, was resulting from be locked up on Wednesday after she admitted a second workplace-based medical fraud.
However on the eve of the sentencing her legal professionals produced a 3rd psychological report diagnosing her with a character dysfunction — in battle with two different specialists.
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Earlier specialists discovered Ward had traits of character issues, however didn’t have a recognized situation.
Nevertheless, the most recent report discovered she did have a recognized character dysfunction, with obsessive compulsive traits.
She was not an individual pushed by sheer greed or plain maliciousness, however by a disordered frame of mind, her lawyer Michael Allen stated.
Ward put by means of tons of of dodgy Medicare claims for herself and her husband whereas working as a receptionist on the Melbourne Digestive Clinic between March 2019 and April 2020.
She made 1609 false claims in complete — as much as 80 a day — diverting $181,121.75 into financial institution accounts for herself and her husband.
Prosecutor Adam Murphy described it as a “theft of the Australian group”.
The most recent medical report described Ward’s offending as “passive hostility in direction of her employers”.
Allen stated she felt indignant that she was anticipated to work unpaid hours, and her obsessive character supplied her with a method that momentarily made her really feel higher about herself.
County Court docket Choose Geoff Chettle tried to simplify that, suggesting “that is the place she felt she labored too laborious and so they owed her cash and so she stole it”.
She’ll be jailed when she’s sentenced on Friday. She has been authorized for a jail program which means her one-year-old baby can go along with her.
Ward’s offending got here as a shock to then-colleague Vanessa Whitelaw, who had initially backed the younger mum earlier than being confronted with proof of her guilt.
Coworkers puzzled at Ward’s lavish way of life, however by no means dreamed the place the cash was coming from.
“We thought it was very unusual — she was very younger, (with a) new household, mortgage driving round in a $150,000 automobile, Gucci scarves, fancy sneakers,” she stated.
“However by no means in one million years did we expect that this was happening behind the scenes.”
They weren’t conscious that in 2015, Ward dishonestly obtained $29,000 in false refunds on behalf of sufferers at Cabrini Hospital, the place she had labored.
She had been working at one other medical follow between the more moderen offending and happening maternity depart earlier than the delivery of her second baby final February.
They weren’t conscious of her fraudulent historical past.
Ward has since repaid the cash.
