Lawson v R - [2012] NZCA 426

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND

CA593/2011
[2012] NZCA 426

BETWEEN SONJA MARIE LAWSON
Appellant

AND THE QUEEN
Respondent

Hearing: 13 September 2012

Court: Harrison, French and Simon France JJ

Counsel: Appellant in person
M J Lillico for the Respondent

Judgment: 19 September 2012 at 2.15 pm

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The appeal against conviction is dismissed.

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Harrison J)

Introduction

Sonja Lawson appeals against her conviction on 15 charges of using a document with intent to obtain a pecuniary advantage, dishonestly and without claim of right, following a trial before Judge Roberts in the District Court at New Plymouth.[1] Miss Lawson does not appeal against her suspended sentence of nine months imprisonment.
[1] R v Lawson DC New Plymouth CRI-2010-021-1078, 26 August 2011.
The charges arose from Miss Lawson’s receipt of state benefits. The Crown allege that she misused benefit forms submitted to Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) between January 2006 and August 2009 by failing in all 15 cases to disclose that she had bonus bonds available to her as income and, additionally, in eight cases by failing to provide accurate information about her rental obligations.
Miss Lawson was represented at trial by Ms Hughes QC. She represents herself on this appeal. She advances about 20 grounds in support. A common theme runs through many of them and a number overlap. Another five are not appeal points. Included within that latter category are an allegation of a failure to ensure that the prosecution was heard in what Miss Lawson calls a closed court; breach of a name suppression order; and WINZ disclosure of Miss Lawson’s prosecution to third parties.
In the interests of giving focus to Miss Lawson’s appeal we have distilled her arguments into what appear to be her primary grounds. Before addressing each we shall summarise the material findings made by Judge Roberts. We add that in argument on appeal Miss Lawson referred to a large number of additional documents which were not produced at the trial.

District Court

The trial in the District Court occupied three days of hearing. The Crown called 11 witnesses. Miss Lawson gave evidence in her defence but did not call additional witnesses. All witnesses read briefs of evidence. Some were cross-examined. Ms Deirdre Fell, the WINZ Service Centre Manager at Hawera, was the principal Crown witness.
The factual element of each charge was not in dispute at trial. Miss Lawson was in receipt of a state invalid benefit throughout the period covered by the charges. The charges were generated by her application for a special benefit on 10 January 2006. Subsequently she signed and submitted a number of other forms for special needs grants and benefit reviews. She obtained a pecuniary advantage in the form of new or additional benefits to a cumulative value of more than $18,000.
The primary area of dispute at trial related to the mental element of each charge. Miss Lawson’s state of mind when signing the forms…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Lawson v R

Details

AGLC: Lawson v R [2012] NZCA 426
Case: [2012] NZCA 426
Decision Date: 19 September 2012

CaseChat Overview and Summary

Sonja Marie Lawson appeals against her conviction on 15 charges of using a document with intent to obtain a pecuniary advantage, dishonestly and without claim of right. The charges arose from Miss Lawson’s receipt of state benefits. The Crown alleges that she misused benefit forms submitted to Work and Income New Zealand between January 2006 and August 2009 by failing in all 15 cases to disclose that she had bonus bonds available to her as income and, additionally, in eight cases by failing to provide accurate information about her rental obligations. Miss Lawson was represented at trial by Ms Hughes QC. She represents herself on this appeal. She advances about 20 grounds in support. A common theme runs through many of them and a number overlap. Another five are not appeal points. In the interests of giving focus to Miss Lawson’s appeal, the court has distilled her arguments into what appear to be her primary grounds. The primary area of dispute at trial related to the mental element of each charge. Miss Lawson’s state of mind when signing the forms was squarely in issue. Judge Roberts made these three unchallenged findings about Miss Lawson’s ownership of the bonds: (a) she held the bonds from July 1998 through until May 2010 including the period covered by the charges; (b) as at 31 January 2006 the value equivalent of the bonds was $2,030, progressively increasing to about $21,000 by August 2009; and (c) she did not disclose these assets in any of the forms which she signed. However, Miss Lawson asserted at trial and again on appeal that she had made separate disclosure of ownership to Work and Income New Zealand. Judge Roberts specifically referred to the prosecution’s obligation to prove beyond reasonable doubt that when Miss Lawson used the documents specified in the individual charges she did so dishonestly and without claim of right, intending to obtain the particular benefit. In finding that the Crown had discharged that burden on Miss Lawson’s failure to disclose ownership of the bonus bonds the Judge set out his reasons fully. Miss Lawson’s explanations for the falsities apparent on the face of the forms followed a consistent pattern. She asserted that on each occasion she discussed the form with different Work and Income New Zealand staff members when signing; that each staff member advised it was unnecessary for her to list ownership of the bonus bonds as a cash asset because it was put aside to meet liabilities; that Work and Income New Zealand had destroyed file notes of advice given by its staff; and that Work and Income New Zealand had removed her contemporary correspondence including copies of bonus bonds certificates annexed to forms. In some cases Miss Lawson initially denied purchasing bonus bonds, suggesting others were responsible. There are obvious inconsistencies inherent in Miss Lawson's assertions that, on the one hand, Work and Income New Zealand staff consistently advised her she was not required to disclose her ownership of the bonus bonds in the benefit documents and that, on the other hand, she always attached copies of the bond certificates to the forms. It is not unfair to characterise many of Miss Lawson’s answers as evasive, diversionary and implausible; taken together, they convey an adverse impression of a sustained practice of dishonesty. It was open to the Judge in these circumstances to reject her exculpatory explanations.

Miss Lawson’s appeal against conviction is dismissed.

Orders