Appeal on guilty verdicts for fraud charges

GUILTY verdicts on eight fraud charges brought against a Cygnet bookkeeper are “unsustainable,” her lawyer says.

Hayley Margaret Webster, 42, pleaded not guilty to 103 counts of computer-related fraud and a Supreme Court jury found her guilty of eight of the counts — accounting for $17,000 — in May last year.

She was sentenced to six months’ jail, wholly suspended, on the condition she commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for two years, and ordered to pay a $400 victims of crime compensation levy.

During the trial in Hobart, prosecutors alleged Webster stole almost $180,000 from DCC Excavations boss Darren Lawless while working as an in-house accountant, between April 2011 and September 2013.

When she gave evidence at trial, Webster did not deny the transfers had taken place but said they were made at the behest of Mr Lawless as a way for him to avoid tax.

She said Mr Lawless allowed her to use some of the funds to cover her own living expenses and in lieu of a wage.

Webster’s lawyer Kim Baumeler told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Hobart recently that for the jury to have made findings of not guilty on so many of the counts, “the jury must have accepted that there was . . . an agreement between the two of them [Webster and Mr Lawless]”.

Ms Baumeler said the jury must also have accepted the agreement involved money being filtered into Webster’s account and redistributed to Mr Lawless and his employees “to make it look like the business was making a loss”.

Crown prosecutor Tony Jacobs said the jury may have viewed the eight counts to which it returned guilty verdicts differently because each count related to larger sums.

The Crown is appealing against the sentence. Mr Jacobs said a restitution order should have been made.

The court has reserved its decision.