Joanne Louise Mobbs & three others drain NDIS client’s $140k fund

Four fraudsters have been caught stripping a Queensland NDIS recipient’s fund of tens of thousands with the main offender a former carer and “friend” of the family.

Gladstone woman Joanne Louise Mobbs, 53, was jailed for fraudulently obtaining $75,563 from her former Rockhampton client's NDIS fund. Three other people also stole money, completely draining the $142,000 fund.

The main offender in a major NDIS rip off kept dipping into a vulnerable former client’s funds long after she had stopped helping her.

This is what Rockhampton District Court heard on March 22 when Joanne Louise Mobbs, 53, was jailed for fraudulently obtaining $75,563 from the fund.

Crown prosecutor Kate Droney said Mobbs submitted 28 false invoices, claiming for care services of a woman in her mid 20s who had cerebral palsy and severe intellectual impairment.

She said Mobbs preyed on a vulnerable person to dishonestly gain the money out of the woman’s $142,000 NDIS approved fund between June 7, 2020 and January 19, 2021.

Judge Jeff Clarke said the system “relied on the honesty of people submitting the invoices”.

“There’s no checks and balances put in place … apart from looking at things with the benefit of hindsight,” he said.

Ms Droney said Mobbs had previously provided services for the Rockhampton victim up until March 2020, and was friends with the victim’s mother.

She said Mobbs wasn’t the only person to submit false invoices for this victim.

One of her housemates, a second man and a relative of her then boyfriend have been sentenced for their fraud crimes – with the group “fully depleting” the victim’s NDIS fund.

“It’s shameful behaviour,” Judge Clarke said.

The court heard Brendan Alexander Hudson-Miller obtained $40,365 and he was sentenced on August 9, 2023 in Mackay to two years and three months prison with parole release after serving six months.

A second co-accused was sentenced in a Queensland magistrates court on April 21, 2023 and a third, Laura Harvey, was sentenced in Rockhampton Magistrates Court on May 9, 2023.

“The defendant was in a relationship with the father of Hudson-Miller (Sean Hudson),” Ms Droney said, adding Mobbs also lived with Laura Harvey.

“Unlike the defendant, neither of those three offenders knew (the victim) and they never provided services to her.”

Ms Droney said emergency funding was set up for the victim after the fraud was discovered.

She said Mobbs had previously fronted court 22 times for more than 60 offences including drug and property convictions, along with 18 fraudulent/dishonest convictions starting in 1997.

She also said there was little evidence of Mobbs’s remorse, she had not made any voluntary repayments nor undertaken any treatment to address her behaviour and continued to offend while on bail.

Defence barrister Maree Willey told the court Mobbs claimed it was Mr Hudson who suggested the offending take place and she sent him some of the money, about $27,000, to an account he had access to while he was incarcerated.

She said there were bank statements which showed Mobbs, who started using drugs when she was 15 but had abstained for the past four years, transferred money to Mr Hudson’s prison account and also withdrew large sums of money to give to him.

The court was told evidence gathered in the investigation revealed more money going into an account in Sean Hudson’s name than going into Mobbs’s own account.

“There certainly are no significant amounts or regular amounts from Mobbs’s accounts to Hudson in jail,” she said.

Ms Droney said the amounts did not reach the threshold Mobbs claimed and she was still submitting false invoices after Sean Hudson (who is not accused of any wrongdoing in relation to the NDIS fund and has not faced related charges) was released from prison.

Ms Willey said her client claimed she did not “prevail on the others to be involved”, but the materials she used to do up the false invoices were left lying around at the home she shared with Harvey.

Judge Jeff Clarke said he had issues accepting this version of events.

“The story seems a bit odd to me,” he said.

Judge Clarke said Harvey was dealt with by the courts on the basis she was given the information by someone.

Ms Willey said those were the instructions Mobbs, who was receiving Centrelink benefits at the time and still does, had given to her lawyers.

She said Mobbs, a self-described former drug addict, was a stay-at-home mum who now lived in Gladstone with her two youngest children.

Mobbs pleaded guilty to one count fraud and was sentenced to 3.5 years prison with a non-parole period of 10 months.

She was also ordered to pay $75,563 restitution.

Originally published as Joanne Louise Mobbs & three others drain NDIS client’s $140k fund