STATE OF TASMANIA v MICHELLE MARREE WOOLLEY 3 OCTOBER 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BRETT J
Ms Woolley, you have pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully setting fire to property and one count of attempting to dishonestly acquire a financial advantage.
Your crimes are an example of an all too common type of insurance fraud. You acted in concert with your co-accused who was your partner at the time. You and he have since ended your relationship. Your car had been developing mechanical issues for some time. Rather than fixing or replacing it, you and he decided to set it on fire, pretend that it had been stolen and make a claim on its comprehensive insurance policy. On 3 March 2018, you both took the vehicle to a relatively remote location and set fire to it. On the following day, you falsely reported its theft to police, and then the day after, made the claim to the insurance company by telephone. If the claim had been paid out, you would have received $23,100. Fortunately, the insurance company became immediately suspicious and your dishonest conduct was detected by extensive investigation by the insurance investigator and the police. As a result, the claim was not paid. When police interviewed you on 30 May 2018, you maintained the false story that the vehicle had been stolen. However, your co-accused, who was also interviewed on that same day, admitted what you and he had done. Conversations between you, recorded subsequently and covertly, indicated that your intention was to continue to lie to police about your involvement. It was not until 28 June that you approached a detective and admitted your involvement.
You are 51 years of age. Your only prior convictions are some traffic offences and a very old conviction for assault. You have three adult children and have led an industrious working life. You are currently employed by the Department of Health as a hospital aide. You have had some recent health problems, which you attribute largely to stress and depression resulting from this case.
Consistently with your lack of relevant prior criminal history and your responsible work record, it is submitted on your behalf that your conduct was completely out of character. You claim to have been strongly influenced by your co-accused. You also claim that it was he is who set the vehicle alight. Even if this is true, I do not think that there is any significant legitimate distinction to be made between your respective culpability. It was you who reported the theft to police, made the claim on insurance and maintained the falsehood during the police investigation and interview which went on for almost four months after the crimes were committed. However, I accept that this conduct was out of character, and I also accept that you are now ashamed of and deeply regret your involvement in these crimes and the position that it has placed you in. However, I am not convinced that you have genuine remorse. You claim credit for your plea of guilty and I accept that the plea has utilitarian benefit but I am not convinced that it is demonstrative of remorse. It has come at a relatively late stage in the proceedings and after an attempt to challenge the admissibility of evidence against you. You are not, of course, to be punished for exercising your right to require the case against you to be lawfully proved, but a plea of guilty that was consistent with true remorse would have been made at a much earlier time and made irrespective of the strength of the case against you.
Your conduct in this case involved premeditated and blatant dishonesty. Insurance companies, in particular, are vulnerable to criminal conduct of this nature. But for the diligence and thoroughness of both the insurance company and the police, your attempted fraud would have been successful. Sentences for crimes such as these must deter others from similar conduct. The appropriate punishment is a sentence of imprisonment. However, having regard to your prior good record, the fact that the crime was out of character, and your eventual plea of guilty, I think it is appropriate to give you an opportunity to avoid serving the sentence. If you had been in good health, I would also have required you to perform community service, but given the medical information have received, I do not think this is appropriate.
Accordingly, the orders I make are as follows:
1 You are convicted of the crimes which you have pleaded guilty.
2 You are sentenced to a global term of 6 months’ imprisonment. The whole of the sentence will be suspended for a period of 18 months, which will commence from today. The suspension of the sentence is subject to a condition that you are not to commit an offence punishable by imprisonment during that period.
I make a compensation order in favour of Insurance Australia Limited trading as WFI in an amount to be assessed and I adjourn assessment sine die.