A 73-year-old Queanbeyan grandmother who stole more than $370,000 in Centrelink payments will spend at least nine months in prison.
Wilhelmina Dominica Huntman, of Doeberl Place in Karabar, pleaded guilty to two sets of fraud charges in Queanbeyan District Court last week.
The case was adjourned and she appeared in court again on Wednesday.
Huntman said she spent most of the money on gifts for her grandchildren in Canberra and her son in Morocco.
She also gambled up to $300 a week on poker machines at the Queanbeyan Leagues Club and had no assets left to repay the money.
The court heard that Huntman had received a Widows Pension and an Aged Pension in her own name between May 1987 and June 2006 - and that she had also been collecting other Centrelink payments in both her maiden name and another false identity.
She had used a fake birth certificate, invented a husband and tampered with her passport to claim the payments.
When Centrelink uncovered the fraud, police executed a search warrant at Huntman's home and found the documents including the tampered passport, pension cards and medicare cards.
Huntman had claimed the benefits from both Queanbeyan and Belconnen Centrelink offices.
For the charges relating to the payments she claimed in her maiden name, she was sentenced to 10-months imprisonment, with a non-parole period of three months.
For the payments she claimed in her false identity, Huntman was sentenced to 18-months imprisonment, with a non-parole period of seven months.
Judge John Goldring said she would be released on two two-year good-behaviour bonds in June 2008.
She was also ordered to repay the $370,000 - with no fixed date for repayment.
Huntman showed no emotion as officers led her away after Wednesday's hearing.
She was taken to Silverwater Prison.
Judge Goldring said Centrelink fraud could not be regarded as less serious than other crimes because there were no victims.
He said every taxpayer was a victim and he had imposed the sentence as a general deterrent to other offenders.
The court heard Huntman, who was born in the Netherlands, had been scarred by her childhood suffering in World War II.
She had reluctantly migrated to Australia in 1958 with her family and endured "unpleasant conditions" at an immigrant camp.
Huntman also suffered years of physical abuse at the hands of an alcoholic ex-husband who only let her leave the house to take her sons to school.
After leaving her ex-husband in 1986, Huntman claimed a pension under her maiden name and later applied for another using a third identity.
The judge said the fact Huntman created separate bank accounts for some of the payments showed she had deliberately set out to defraud the Commonwealth.
Huntman's barrister Bernard Collaery asked the judge to be merciful in sentencing her.
Judge Goldring said Huntman's life circumstances were sad and he was mindful of her health and age, but could not find an alternative punishment to prison.
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