Not Guilty to Over 100 Fraud Charges Worth $3million

Our client is 38 year old man who was born in New Zealand. He had struggled throughout his life with mental health issues.

He had a lengthy criminal history for fraud offences. Indeed, he had previously spent a number of years in jail for fraud offences.

We previously represented him in a District Court Trial for numerous fraud charges. He was ultimately found ‘not guilty by reason of mental illness’. Click here to read about that case.

However, during that trial he was charged with over 100 fresh fraud charges.

Police alleged that our client had drafted a number of fake cheques worth over $3million.

It was also alleged that our client had set up fake betting accounts in the names of his family members.

It was further alleged that our client had set up fake companies and purchased goods and services worth $188,000 on credit.
Police refused him bail.

We immediately went to work preparing a bail application which was successful. You can read about that by clicking here.

First, we obtained a further report from our psychiatrist setting out that our client had the defence of mental illness open to him for the fresh charges as well.

The DPP indicated that they would obtain their own psychiatrist report. Before this occurred, we pre-emptively obtained a report from a second psychiatrist which again confirmed the defence was open.

With the weight of evidence on our side, the Crown psychiatrist was forced to agree that the defence was open.

The trial proceeded at Downing Centre District Court where the prosecution was forced to concede that the defence was open and the Judge was left with no choice but to find our client not guilty by reason of mental illness in relation to all 102 fraud charges.