Hastings Club granny Barbara Bell-McLaren spared jail for $107,000 Centrelink rort
A Hastings footy club stalwart is in hot water after the devious granny rorted $107,000 from Centrelink.
South East
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A Mornington Peninsula grandmother who fleeced more than $100,000 from Centrelink has been spared a jail stint.
Barbara Bell-McLaren, 77, was sentenced in the County Court on Friday to two-year suspended jail term after pleading guilty to obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
Bell-McLaren rorted $107,255 in aged care pension payments via 31 false declarations between 2012 and 2018.
The court was told Bell-McLaren funnelled the dough into multiple bank accounts then dumped most the cash through the pokies.
The Hastings granny neglected to tell Centrelink she was pulling good coin working two jobs during her offending period.
Bell-McLaren, who also goes by Barbara Joan Bell-McLaren and Barbara Bell, raked in a combined $305,000 driving buses for Cranbourne Transit and peninsula pokies joint The Hastings Club.
The latter company is linked to the Hastings Football and Netball Club with which Bell-McLaren is associated.
Bell-McLaren’s skulduggery was detected by Centrelink via data-matching in mid-2017.
Centrelink wrote the dole-cheat a letter informing her of the data-match then invited her in for an interview in October 2018.
Bell-McLaren, who admitted her offending had “snowballed”, told Centrelink she blew the cash on gambling, living expenses and a new kitchen for her house.
The granny also told Centrelink she didn’t consider her bus driving role at The Hastings Club to be work.
“(The club) was more like family,” Bell-McLaren said.
Bell-McLaren denied having a “devious reason” for holding three different bank accounts.
She admitted knowing her pension benefits would have decreased had she correctly reported her income.
The court was told Bell-McLaren was now seeking treatment for her gambling problem which a psychologist opined had “escalated to an addiction”.
Bell-McLaren, who has multiple priors for dishonesty offences, has now “desisted” from gambling and self-excluded herself from 30 pokies venues near her home.
Judge George Georgiou called Bell-McLaren’s offending an “ongoing course of conduct” which was “deliberate and calculated behaviour”.
However, Judge Georgiou spared the granny an immediate jail term citing her age and some personal circumstances as factors in mitigation.
Bell-McLaren was handed a two-year jail term wholly suspended for three years.
She was also ordered to repay $93,158.
