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Car insurance fraudster caught out
When Hayden Gerald McLeay lost his job and faced growing money problems, he found out it had been a very bad idea to buy a Studebaker car for $15,000.
His lawyer David Bunce today told the Christchurch District Court that McLeay tried to sell the car but could not get anything like the amount he paid for it, and he would have been left with a large debt.
Twenty-one-year-old McLeay today pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining money by deception ? the insurance fraud that became his attempted solution to his money woes.
He contacted the Christchurch police to report the car had been stolen from his garage. He then signed a theft claim form at his insurance company and received a cheque for $14,900.
The car was later found at Leeston, south of Christchurch, and McLeay explained to the police that he had fraudulently reported the theft because he was under severe financial pressure and had bad debts he could not pay.
Mr Bunce explained to Judge Gary MacAskill that McLeay had got into financial difficulties when he lost his job and was having trouble obtaining even a social welfare benefit.
The car had become a white elephant and had since been sold for only about a fifth of the money McLeay paid for it.
?It seems you paid far too much for this vehicle,? said the judge.
He sentenced McLeay to 150 hours of community work and ordered him to pay reparations totalling $10,896 ? the unrecovered money owing on the car after it was sold ? at a rate of $30 a week.
