Source : Perth Now news
Cleared of killing two of her children, a Gold Coast mother has now admitted to defrauding disability support services of more than $140,000 over years.
Gold Coast mother Maree Mavis Crabtree confessed to fraudulently taking more than $150,000 from disability support services and the government in her latest appearance before the court after being cleared of two murders.
Crabtree pleaded guilty before Brisbane District Court on Tuesday to one count of fraud – dishonestly gaining benefit of at least $30,000 and two commonwealth charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception.
Her sentence on the fraud charges came after Ms Crabtree faced trial in April this year, accused of killing her son Jonathan with a lethal dose of oxycodone mixed into a fruit smoothie.
She was then alleged to have tried to collect death benefits on his superannuation.
A jury found her not guilty on all fronts.
The mother of three had been set to face a separate murder charge for the death of her eldest daughter Erin; however, prosecutors dropped their case in June and the charge was dismissed.
Erin died in 2012, aged 18; Jonathan died in 2019, aged 26.
History of deception
During her sentencing, details of Crabtree’s recorded criminal history were revealed in court, uncovering more lies and deception.
In 1999, Crabtree pleaded guilty to two counts of false representation after she was accused of lying about her ex-partner and his family.
Crabtree went to police with claims her ex-partner and his family had sent threatening letters and exhibited threatening behaviour towards her.
Police investigated the matter but found Crabtree’s account was “vague” and contained “inconsistencies”, according to Crown prosecutor Zachary Kaplan.
This led police to undertake surveillance at her home.
While being watched, Crabtree claimed she was a victim of a break-in and attempted break-in at her home, which police knew to be untrue as their surveillance proved it was impossible.
The court was told a threatening letter was found at the side of the house, scratchily written in red texta on a particular kind of paper.
A red texta, the same type of paper and gloves with red ink marks were found inside Crabtree’s purse by police.
While she claimed she had found them in a plastic bag and implicated her ex-partner and his brother, she ultimately pleaded guilty to lying to police.
Fraud charges
On Tuesday, the court was told Crabtree received more than $12,000 in government benefits related to her adult daughter’s care, “long after” she was removed as her carer.
The offending was said to have occurred over five months between 2017 and 2018.
The court was then told Crabtree lied to the disability support service Lifestyle Solutions from 2010 to 2015, telling them she was still living in NSW when she was actually in Queensland, therefore defrauding the organisation of $140,0000.
Mr Kaplan said Crabtree was deliberate in her lies, telling a case worker who offered to transfer her case to Queensland that she was “in Queensland temporarily and she was coming back to NSW”.
“She moved to Queensland in 2010 and never went back,” Mr Kaplan said.
However, the court was told she may have been entitled to a similar, or the same, amount if she had been truthful about where she lived and her case had been correctly managed in Queensland.
“She may well have been entitled up to that amount if she had indicated she had been living in Queensland under that basis,” defence barrister Amelia Anderson said.
Ms Anderson argued Crabtree’s fraudulent acts against the government were
“offences by omission rather than an active fraud” and noted the Gold Coast mother was already on her way to repaying the about $12,000 she owed.
She stated Crabtree had been held on remand for the alleged murders, to which she was cleared, for about six years, including through Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
“It was quite an onerous six years,” Ms Anderson said.
She claimed Crabtree had lost many friends during and after the police investigations into her children’s deaths and was now estranged from her daughter who testified against her at trial in April.
“She had to deal with being charged for the murder of her other two children and grieve their loss while being in custody,” Ms Anderson said.
For each commonwealth offence, Crabtree was ordered to serve one month imprisonment and was convicted but not further punished for her state fraud charge.
Crabtree was ultimately released into the community on Tuesday after her time in pre-sentence custody was declared time already served under the sentence.
