A former taekwondo champ from Keysborough who rorted more than $88,000 in carer payments has been sentenced to a community corrections order.
Seda Demirkiran, now 28, failed to declare her employment income to the Commonwealth’s Department of Human Services for more than four-and-a-half years up to 2018, County Court judge Michael Bourke said in sentencing on 6 November.
She earned up to $280,000 over that time in mainly financial sector jobs, including with NAB.
Judge Bourke said there was a link between Demirkiran’s borderline personality disorder and her prolonged offending.
Her mental illness stemmed from a “persistently traumatic” upbringing and family home, where she cared for her seriously sick and opioid-addicted mother.
Demirkiran legitimately claimed the full carer’s allowance from 2013 but failed to notify Centrelink of her employment from January 2014.
There were opportunities to stop the “serious” offending as well as several acts of dishonesty, Judge Bourke said.
“It is offending that is difficult to detect and in effect exploits the necessary trust of the social welfare system.
“There’s community loss in all these things.”
Demirkiran misrepresented her work status to be reinstated on the carer’s allowance in 2015 as well as to an eligibility review in 2016.
In 2018, her ruse ended after data-matching her income declared to the Australian Taxation Office.
The former Australian taekwondo representative is currently employed after losing her job with NAB in 2018.
Judge Bourke accepted there was financial difficulty, with the family home sold to resolve Demirkiran’s bankrupt father’s debts.
Demirkiran avoided jail due to her guilty plea, no prior convictions, good rehabilitation prospects and relevant mental illness.
She was placed on a three-year supervised CCO including 350 hours of unpaid work and mental health treatment.
She was ordered to repay the remaining $87,574.73.
