Stolen driver’s licence used to secure new phones, plans and car hire

A WOMAN put her own photo on a stolen driver’s licence and used it to take out high-end phone plans, a court was told.

Unlicensed driver Tracy Lee Ewens also used the digitally altered card to hire a car.

The 46-year-old pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court yesterday to a series of charges including utter forged documents, stealing and fraud.

Police prosecutor Constable Lewis Butterfield said Ewens stole the credit card as well as a Medicare card from an unsuspecting Coles customer on June 22 last year. She used them to sign up to two phone contracts valued at $2952, which included an iPhone 10, from a Telstra store in Broadbeach on August 20 last year.

“The Queensland driver’s licence had a digitally altered image with (Ewens) on it,” Constable Butterfield said.

“She left the store with two brand new mobile phones.”

The plumber was arrested after she walked into Logan Central Police Station to hand herself in, bringing along the stolen cards and the drug ice.

Defence lawyer Demi Quadrio, of Gatenby Criminal Lawyers, said Ewens relapsed into old drug habits in the leadup to the fraud crime spree.

Ewens received a lengthy jail sentence in the Supreme Court in 2014 over drug charges, for which she will be on parole until 2021.

“She was supporting her own (drug) habit,” Ms Quadrio said. “Her parole officer is aware of these offences and ... remains supportive of her.”

Magistrate Kerrie O’Callaghan said Ewens’ offending was “fairly sophisticated”.

Ewens was sentenced to nine months in jail, wholly suspended.