Woman who dressed up doll in elaborate Centrelink fraud scam sentenced
But she still doesn't believe she did anything wrong.
By Sarah Wiedersehn
September 18 2019
A woman who fraudulently claimed more than $200,000 in Centrelink parenting payments for her severely disabled daughter - who had died 15 years prior - has escaped jail time.
But she still doesn't believe she did anything wrong.
Alison Christie Mains, 41, was charged with three counts each of obtaining financial advantage by deception and defrauding the Commonwealth.
The court had heard Mains, who has a cognitive impairment, would dress up a doll and pretend it was her disabled daughter, who died in mid-1998.
By the time the lies were exposed in 2013, she had fraudulently claimed $39,400 in the childcare allowance, $83,700 for the single parenting payment and $85,900 for the family tax benefit.
Alison Mains (left) is helped by a friend as she leaves the Downing Centre District Court in Sydney, Wednesday, September 18, 2019.
To help maintain the lie, she called Centrelink about every six months to seek advance payments.
At times, she claimed her daughter was in "palliative care that day" or that she had used up her previous payments on medical expenses and costs associated with her child's neurological dysfunction.
"The offending began as a result of Ms Mains' daughter dying in horrific, tragic circumstances, aged five months," her barrister Marty Bernhaut told the judge in July.
On Wednesday, a teary Mains pleaded with the judge not to sentence her to jail and shouted "I didn't do anything wrong" at the sentencing in the Downing Centre District Court.
She instead said her mother and husband were to blame.
The judge did spare Mains jail time but not before slamming her deception.
"Despite her limitations, she ably facilitated the falsity of her daughter's death," NSW District Court Judge Nicole Noman said.
"She didn't merely misrepresent her daughter's death ... she created scenarios to ensure payments."
Mains was sentenced to three years jail but will serve the time by way of an Intensive Corrections Order, meaning she will serve the sentence within the community.
As part of the corrections order, Mains is required to seek medical treatment and not consume drugs and alcohol.
In setting the longest intensive corrections order possible, Judge Noman warned any breach could result in more stringent conditions or time in jail.
Originally published as Woman who dressed up doll in elaborate Centrelink fraud scam sentenced
