Neighbourhood Watch volunteer and former Supreme Court security guard Rita Mougros rorted $17k from Territory taxpayer in ‘insidious’ fraud

A FORMER Supreme Court security guard and Neighbourhood Watch volunteer who rorted more than $17,000 from the Department of Territory Families will have to find a new line of work after a tribunal knocked back her bid for a new security licence

Rita Mougros joined Neighbourhood Watch in 2015 but was secretly committing white collar fraud against the Territory government.

A FORMER Supreme Court security guard and Neighbourhood Watch volunteer who rorted more than $17,000 from the Department of Territory Families will have to find a new line of work after a tribunal knocked back her bid for a new security licence.

A FORMER Supreme Court security guard and Neighbourhood Watch volunteer who rorted more than $17,000 from the Department of Territory Families will have to find a new line of work after a tribunal knocked back her bid for a new security licence.

Rita Mougros was in September last year sentenced to six months jail, fully suspended, after pleading guilty to obtaining benefit by deception, a “disqualifying offence” which meant she had to turn in her licence.

Rita Mougros

The NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Friday refused Mougros’s application to review the Director General of Licensing’s decision to refuse her a new licence.

Tribunal members Andrew Macrides and Mark O’Reilly found Mougros “has shown little insight into the gravity of her offending”.

“Clearly she does not accept the disposition of the sentencing court,” Mr Macrides and Mr Reilly wrote.

“Questions remain about Ms Mougros’s ability to ethically exercise responsibility and oversight of another person’s property.”

Mougros’s offending saw her claim benefits from an NT Government pensioners’ scheme for eight years after her mother left Darwin and moved back to Greece.

Mougros also claimed the benefits in her father’s name for four years, starting in 2013, despite him having left Australia in 2003.

White collar criminal Rita Mougros keeps an eye out for crime

In 2017, she forged each of her parents’ signatures on government paperwork, but her fraud unravelled when she tried to fix an error she made in the falsified paperwork that meant she was not being paid both lots of benefits.

At the time, Judge Michael Carey said: “This is quite an insidious offence because it’s extremely difficult to detect and on this occasion, it’s only because you made an error in the paperwork that you were actually found out.”

“It’s an attack on the funds that are meant to help people who are less able to care for themselves …”

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Mr Macrides and Mr O’Reilly said Mougros’s “positive contribution” to the community through Neighbourhood Watch did not mean she was suitable to be trusted with working as a security guard.

Mougros told the NT News in 2015 that preventing crime in your neighbourhood was “just using your brain and a lot of common sense”.

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Her suspended sentence expires next year.