A Dunedin woman's use of her dead mother's name for a supermarket charge account was ''one of the nastiest types of dishonesty offending'' he had dealt with, a Dunedin District Court judge said yesterday.
What made the situation worse was 42-year-old Michaela Anne Eltringham involving her teenage son in the offending, Judge Kevin Phillips said.
Eltringham forged her dead mother's signature to apply for a charge account at Gardens New World on January 30, five weeks after the woman's death.
She had her 18-year-old son, Caleb, as a second signatory to the application.
''I don't understand why you weren't charged with forgery,'' the judge said when sentencing Eltringham to home detention, community work and reparation for incurring, by deception, a $2447.58 debt with the supermarket.
Between January 31 and March 31, Eltringham and her son charged 57 transactions totalling $2658.97 to the account opened in the dead woman's name.
''Caleb must have felt bad about it because he made a payment of $211.40 on the account in mid-February,'' Judge Phillips told the defendant.
No further payments were made, leaving an amount outstanding of $2447.58. When police first spoke to her, Eltringham said her mother had died in early May this year.
She later admitted the death was last December and she had done what she did because she was struggling financially.
Given she had been convicted of a ''similar scam'' in February last year, Eltringham should really be going to prison and her children placed in care, Judge Phillips said.
He disagreed with the pre-sentence report which assessed her as at a low risk of reoffending and he questioned whether she could comply with a community-based sentence.
She had breached her existing sentence from last year.
But as Eltringham had a suitable address for an electronically-monitored sentence, Judge Phillips sentenced her to four months' home detention, 150 hours' community work and ordered her to pay $2447.50 by weekly instalments of $30.
Special detention conditions and for six months post-detention are that the defendant completes counselling and programmes and budget advice counselling as directed.
For breaching her existing sentence of community work, she was given a concurrent term of one month's home detention and the uncompleted hours were remitted.
Eltringham's son, Caleb Adam Eltringham (18), was earlier sentenced to 100 hours' community work for his involvement in the deception.
