No more chances for woman fraudster
File image. © Andrew Bardwell
Second chances ran out for accomplished conwoman Ann-Marie Kathrine Smith, with an eight-month jail term being imposed on her 14th remand appearance facing fraud charges.
She had wanted it delayed again, so that she could get documentation from Christchurch Hospital to show she had been ill and unable to do any more than one day of an existing community work sentence in the last month.
She said the documents had been faxed to her lawyer, whose office said they had not arrived. Thirty-year-old Smith offered to walk to the hospital from the Court House to get copies of the paperwork, if the case was stood down.
Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen O’Driscoll was unimpressed. “She’s had plenty of time. I’m not prepared to grant an adjournment,” he said as she stood in the dock for sentencing after guilty pleas to two charges of obtaining by deception.
The case’s long list of delays have been caused by an initial not guilty plea on one of the charges, eventual guilty pleas at a pre-trial conference, an appeal to the High Court about name suppression, and delays she sought on medical grounds. She has had five lawyers in the course of the case.
Defence counsel Glenn Dixon said Smith struggled with health issues which made it very difficult for her to be organised. He urged that she be granted home detention.
Smith used a made-up story of family woes to get a Kiwibank customer she had only just met to loan her $3000, and she got a 76-year-old woman to help pay for cheap airfares to Rarotonga for her by paying $495. The money was given to associates.
The bank customer said she had been upset to hear the gruesome details from Smith of how her son was in hospital with burns from a heat pump explosion at her home.
At an appearance last month, Smith’s partner paid $4500 cash to the court to be used to repay the victims, and to pay them some emotional harm reparations. Smith was given a month to do more of the community work sentence – imposed a year ago on other fraud charges – but Smith had only gone for one day.
Judge O’Driscoll said her fraud showed the two sides of humanity: Smith’s manipulation and deception and the kindness and trust of the victim.
He noted her previous dishonesty convictions in 2007, 2008, 2010, and again last year. She had struggled to complete electronically monitored sentences and the Community Probation Service was recommending imprisonment.
Crown prosecutor Pip Norman said Smith continued not to comply with probation requirements such as appointments. The offending was premeditated and a deterrent sentence of imprisonment was needed to protect the community from Smith’s offending.
The judge imposed eight months’ imprisonment with six months of special release conditions when Smith will have to do counselling and treatment programmes as required. The reparation and emotional harm reparation was ordered.
Category: Focus
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