Jersey Unreported Judgments

Inferior Number Sentencing - Fraud

[2023]JRC240

Royal Court

(Samedi)

1 December 2023

The Attorney General

-v-

Victoria Catherine Carr

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charges:

Age:  30.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

Between September 2019 and December 2022, the Defendant submitted 68 fraudulent invoices to her employer's health insurance provider, AXA Global Healthcare, for treatments she claimed to have received from five different medical practices.  As a result of the fraudulent invoices, the Defendant received a total of £24,950 in insurance payments (Count 1).  Three of the invoices submitted by the Defendant were not paid by AXA.  Had these been paid, the Defendant would have received an additional £1,295 (Count 2).

The Defendant created some invoices which were entirely false, and some were altered from previous, genuine invoices. This included altering the date, treatment type, practitioner name and fee paid.

Details of Mitigation:

The Defendant had the benefit of guilty pleas entered at the earliest opportunity.  The full amount was repaid to AXA Global Healthcare on behalf of the Defendant by her partner.  The Defendant was pregnant with her first child at the time of sentencing.  The Defendant was also regarded as being of previous good character.

Previous Convictions:

No previous convictions.

Conclusions:

Total:  18 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.

Contribution to Prosecution costs in sum of £1,000 sought.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

240 hours' Community Service Order (equivalent to 18 months' imprisonment).

Contribution to Prosecution costs in sum of £1,000 ordered to be paid within 14 days.

Ms C. L. G. Carvalho, Crown Advocate.

Advocate M. P. Boothman for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        Victoria Carr, you are 30 years old and of previous good character.  That good character you have lost by virtue of this offending.  Over a substantial period you committed a sustained and repeated fraud on your employers' health insurers.  For example, you submitted thirteen invoices for x-rays to various parts of your body that you never underwent totalling some £6,747.  You submitted invoices in relation to over 30 attendances for the purpose of chiropractic and physiotherapy treatments that you never attended, totalling £10,900.  You forged invoices, sometimes on your work laptop, from a variety of practitioners; and in one case doctored a genuine invoice provided to your mother.  In total you received, in this dishonest way, £24,950 and attempted to obtain an additional £1,295.

2.        When you were interviewed by the police you admitted the offences and you claimed that you were perpetrating them to provide support for your elderly parents in Scotland.  This was substantially untrue as in fact your parents sent you over £30,000 between 2017 and March of this year.  Nonetheless, you say that you have repaid this sum and more. 

3.        You pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and you will receive full credit for that plea of guilty. 

4.        This was a serious abuse of your employers' health insurance policy and this sort of fraudulent conduct affects everyone, for example in relation to increased premiums.

5.        We note from the Pre-Sentence Report that you were for a significant period a victim of an abusive domestic relationship which has now come to an end which may explain some of your offending.  We accept that you are remorseful for what you did.  We have read your letter to us and the letters written by people who know you well and accordingly we accept that this was entirely out of character.  You are now in a new relationship and you have borrowed money from your partner so as to repay the health insurer all that you dishonestly obtained.  You are currently in work and it is unlikely that you will re-offend.

6.        You are also expecting a child, your first child, in March of next year and but for the fact that you are to give birth to your first child next March and but for the fact that there are difficulties in your pregnancy which we are not going to address publicly, but for those facts you would now be starting an 18 month sentence of imprisonment.  But because of the circumstances to which we have just referred, as a direct alternative to custody you will be sentenced on Count 1 to 240 hours' Community Service, the equivalent to 18 months' imprisonment and on Count 2, to 120 hours' concurrent, the equivalent to 6 months' imprisonment making a total of 240 hours.

7.        We direct that you do not start those hours until after your baby has been born and after the period of post-birth recuperation referred to in the note that we received in the retirement, and we extend the period for completion of the order to 18 months from today to take into account that period. 

8.        You will also pay £1,000 towards the costs of the Prosecution within 14 days of today.  Do you understand?

Authorities

AG v Dauny [2010] JRC 141. 

AG v Gibbins [2009] JRC 169. 

AG v Tadier [2007] JRC 231. 

AG v Appleyard [1998] 20