An insurance fraudster has been caught out after failing to hide a car she’d reported stolen.
Georgia Kirby, from Hamlyn Heights, Victoria, reported her Holden Commodore stolen in late 2015 but was caught red-handed when police found the car parked at her home eight months after the supposed theft.
Kirby saw her claim on the vehicle settled by to the tune of $15,800, including $13,500 to replace the car and a further $2,300 spent on hire cars in the weeks after the ‘robbery’,
The Geelong Advertiser reports.
“She denied any knowledge of the vehicle in her driveway being the same one she’d reported stolen,” police prosecutor leading senior constable Geoff Lamb told the Geelong Magistrates’ Court.
Magistrate Frank Jones said that the investigators of the unnamed insurance firm dropped the ball on a slam dunk case.
“Usually the insurance company investigators do a very thorough job, but here they can’t have done,” Jones said.
Kirby made the theft claim in November 2015 and it wasn’t until police visited her property on another matter in July 2016 that they saw the vehicle, without its number plates, parked on the driveway.
A quick check of the vehicle identification number confirmed it was the car reported stolen and the jig was up.
Kirby, who was also remanded for other offences, was found guilty and was jailed for 15 months with a non-parole period of nine months.
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