Shearer foiled passport checks designed to deter terrorists
A woman who wanted to work in Australia breached New Zealand’s passport security which is designed to deter terrorists.
“These are serious offences for which people go to jail,” Christchurch District Court Judge Chris Somerville told 47-year-old Josephine Wade at her sentencing. “It is a system that deters terrorists from moving from one country to another.”
He imposed a nine month home detention term on Wade, who had admitted charges of obtaining and using a false passport.
He said he would grant home detention because of her actions in returning to New Zealand from Australia to face the prosecutions and her actions since then.
Defence counsel April Kelland had told the court Wade had begun training at Christchurch Polytech and was doing Maori studies. She had been a spokesman for the Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation Society’s homeless collective, and worked with the Howard League for the reform of restorative justice.
Wade had acquired several convictions at a time when she was living on the streets and associating with gangs. She went into shearing and then wanted to go into that work in Australia, so she arranged a false passport in a friend’s name. She had a conviction for assault with a weapon in Australia in 2013, when a $500 fine had been imposed.
Judge Somerville said she had been to jail three times in New Zealand, and had then deceived the immigration authorities by travelling and working in Australia and Britain.
“New Zealand passports are very valuable because they are trusted overseas,” the judge told her as he imposed the sentence. “It means that those who hold them are subject to less scrutiny than others.”
The offending occurred in 2006. It was discovered when immigration officials discovered that the false passport and Wade’s real passport had the same photographs. Wade is now living in Christchurch.
Category: Focus
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