Source : Perth Now news
A top Gold Coast private school employed an unqualified woman as its school nurse for years – deceived by her elaborate fraud scheme.
Zoe Ann Buttfield, 39, originally visited the prestigious Somerset College in March 2022 as a first aid and CPR contractor when she learnt of a lucrative opportunity at the school.
She held only a basic first aid and CPR certificate and had never qualified as a registered nurse but, advised there was a job opening as a school nurse, Buttfield did not let her lack of qualifications stand in the way.
The school, known for its high academic rankings, boasts alumni including Margot Robbie, Doctor Doctor actor Ryan Johnson and Gold Coast Health professor of emergency care Julia Crilly OAM.
The now 39-year-old supplied school staff with a falsified bachelor’s degree in nursing and paramedicine as well as phony Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency documents.
The court was told Buttfield used identifying information from a qualified nurse to obtain her legitimate bachelor’s degree from the woman’s university, then falsified the documents to make it appear as if Buttfield obtained the qualification.
She hired a man via the internet to falsify documents, sending him templates to mimic.
When asked by school administration to explain her absence from the online published AHPRA register of practitioners, the court was told Buttfield gave fake exemptions letters.
She further escalated her deception, attempting to apply for registration directly with AHPRA regulators using her fake degree on multiple occasions.
The fake nurse managed to maintain her elaborate ruse for years, with her lies not fully uncovered until 2025 when James Cook University alerted suspicions after Ms Buttfield requested verification of her false degree for registration purposes.
The court was told, over the course of her three-year employment, Buttfield was given $208,000 in income payments; however, it was determined this was not an aggravating factor in her offending.
While employed, Buttfield was responsible for the care of about 1700 students, was referred to by colleagues as “nurse” and wore scrubs.
The court was told, her duties included the dispensing of serious medication such as Ritalin – a stimulant drug prescribed for ADHD and narcolepsy.
Buttfield was terminated from her role at the college in August 2025 and her matters were referred to police.
On July 2, Buttfield pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted fraud, four counts of uttering, and one count each of taking a title indicating a person is a health practitioner, fraud, uttering a registration document, obtaining another entity’s identification information for the purpose of committing an indictable offence and personation in general – falsely represent self to be a person living.
The fraudster told police in an interview the school “made her feel like she belonged in a time when she was struggling with her mental health”.
At her sentencing hearing, Buttfield told the court, through her legal representative, she had struggled to find employment after the Covid-19 pandemic and faced financial pressures.
She claimed she believed she had the skills to work at the college and she had started training as a paramedic however conceded she had abandoned her studies early due to carer responsibilities.
Buttfield claimed she suffered a range of mental health disorders, calling her offending a “very silly decision” made at a time when she was “struggling more than ever before”.
The court was told she had no criminal history, made full admissions to police upon being caught and, after exposure in the courts and media, was determined to never offend again.
On Tuesday, before Southport Magistrates Court, she learnt her fate as magistrate
Nerida Wilson read out her ruling.
“The fraud was prolonged and not unsophisticated, it was calculated, it was premeditated,” Ms Wilson said.
“It is well within a range of possibility that a qualified school nurse would be called upon to administer to children who for example have allergic reaction, respiratory distress, seizures and a myriad of other very serious conditions.
“(There was) the very real potential to expose the children to risk and the school to liability.
“She seized the opportunity to earn more money and gain stable employment without regard for the consequences, with apparently no thought of legitimately achieving such a role through her own studies and endeavour.”
Ms Wilson said a doctor’s report regarding her mental health failed, ultimately, to prove causality to her offending.
“(The report writer) does not reference any potential impact of some stress the defendant may have caused herself by the deceit and the maintenance of the facade over multiple years,” she said.
“It is little adequate explanation as to the connection between the criminal conduct and the opined “mental health concerns” at the time of the offending.
“In my view (her offending) demonstrates deliberate, ongoing, compounding course of conduct designed only to deceive.
“The offender only stopped offending when caught … there is an element of planning and forethought and deceit that is most serious.”
Buttfield was sentenced to six months imprisonment and ordered to serve three months in custody.
Her sentence will be suspended for an operational period of 18 months after her time in custody.
Convictions were recorded.
Somerset College is a non-denominational Christian private school on the Gold Coast.
