Stowport's Jaqueline Broomhall guilty of defrauding state of $300k

Stowport's Jaqueline Maree Broomhall, 53, pleaded guilty in the Burnie Supreme Court yesterday to falsely inserting data, computer related fraud totalling more than $300,000, two counts of forgery, and two counts of uttering.

The court heard Broomhall had committed the crimes between November 2008 and February 2017 while working in travel support for Ambulance Tasmania, where she was tasked with filing claims for the Patient Travel Assistance Scheme.

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The PTAS program provides financial assistance for patients who have to travel for medical treatment. Broomhall was one of six employees with the ability to file and approve claims.

In January 2017, one of Broomhall's colleagues received a call from a patient who was querying an outstanding claim. While looking into it, the employee noticed an unusual claim in the system, registered to a non-existent address in NSW, the court heard.

Crown prosecutor Rebecca Lancaster said the employee soon discovered about 58 "suspicious" claims in the system, linked to addresses and people who did not exist, and which had deposited money in the same five bank accounts.

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She said the employee had left the report on his superior's desk, who soon noticed Broomhall "looking terrible" and asked her if she had done anything wrong.

"She said she didn't think so," Ms Lancaster reported.

Broomhall shortly left for the chemist, before calling her office and saying, "call off the police ... I did it ... I'm going to kill myself".

The court heard Broomhall then became involved in a car crash and was taken to hospital, where she apologised for "embarrassing the department".

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"The accused entered into an agreement to pay $300,000 of the money, and the state accepted that amount as full payment," Ms Lancaster told the court.

"She indicated early on she would likely plead guilty. She has no relevant prior convictions."

Ms Lancaster argued the crimes were the result of "careful planning" and described Broomhall's ability to disguise fraudulent claims as legitimate for so long as "sophisticated".

She added Broomhall had breached trust among her colleagues by using their log-ins at times, and that it had been carried out over a "significant" amount of time.

Defence lawyer Greg Richardson said his client had grown up in an abusive, violent home before leaving school in Year 10 and finding her way into a government job after attending TAFE in the late 1990s.

He said she had suffered from bi-polar disorder for many years.

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"Her husband would come home and she'd sold all the furniture for no reason. Or he'd find her cutting the lawn with scissors," he said.

Mr Richardson argued a misdiagnosis of depression coupled with the wrong medication had worsened her "highs and lows", which was then aggravated by a workplace sexual assault.

He claimed, importantly, that most of the money she had taken had been given to patients using the scheme, instead of being spent on luxuries, illicit drugs, alcohol or gambling.

"I asked her why, she said 'I would feel better by giving the money to people I dealt with'," he said.

Mr Richardson said he was not yet ready to produce evidence to back up the claims.

Ms Lancaster said she would need time to investigate for herself where the money had gone.

Justice Tamara Jago said she would list the matter for a disputed facts hearing on July 22.

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