Identity thief who deserted kids jailed
Sex worker admits host of offences including forging birth certificates
AChinese identity thief on the run in New Zealand for more than a decade has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for a string of offences.
Yuiuo Qin, 35, appeared in Auckland District Court yesterday after she pleaded guilty last October to abandoning her 14-month-old daughter in September 2007, and to abandoning her now 4-yearold son in August of last year.
The mother of three who came to New Zealand in 2001 at the age of 18 to study accounting, left the children with her landlord and friend while “maintaining” her life in the sex industry, Judge Claire Ryan said during sentencing.
Her children were a result of her work in the sex industry, the court was told.
She told authorities she had left the children in the care of nannies, and they were later turned over to CYF.
Qin also admitted three counts of obtaining $23,000 worth of healthcare, by forging Auckland District Health Board documents, including medical and birth certificates in May 2011 and March 2012.
Qin stole the identities from people she lived with to record them as the birth mother of her second and third children, born in 2012 and 2016.
She also stole the Chinese passport of another woman, who was enrolling in nursing studies.
Last year, the woman discovered her identity had been stolen by Qin and used to forge medical documents. In a victim impact statement she wrote she had a “difficult time” explaining to her family the child wasn’t hers.
Judge Ryan said Qin, who was at times tearful, was able to “abandon [her children] with little risk” by using the false identities. She said the effect on Qin’s abandoned children was at the “extreme end of psychological harm”.
Her second child is now “selectively mute”, the court heard.
Qin also obtained a New Zealand driver’s licence under a false identity, and defrauded ASB Bank and the National Bank of New Zealand of more than $18,000 by using stolen Eftpos cards and forged bank withdrawal slips.
Qin’s lawyer, Michael Kan, earlier opposed media publication of his client’s name and photo.
He argued her children would suffer undue hardship as a result of publication.
However, Judge Ryan disagreed.
“That is the price of offending in a democracy,” she said, adding that Qin’s children were also “unlikely to remember their mother’s face”.
Judge Ryan said Qin will be deported to mainland China following her sentence.
Qin is currently pregnant with her fourth child.
Her first two children are now with foster families, while her third child is in the care of her partner.