One woman, ‘300 charges’

KIM WATERS
A woman on about 300 theft-related charges has single-handedly almost tripled Queenscliff’s annual crime rate, according to police.
Queenscliff Sergent Steve Brand said police had charged the woman for a series of alleged offences during “a period of time” last year.
Police alleged the woman embezzled money from her employer, he said.
She would front court in June on multiple counts of theft and theft by deception.
Sgt Brand, who declined to name the woman ahead of her court appearance, said she had caused a major “spike” in recorded crime at Queenscliff.
Victoria Police statistics revealed offences recorded in the town jumped from 139 in 2008/2009 to 451 in 2009/2010.
Sgt Brand said Queenscliff generally had a low crime rate apart from “a few individuals” who caused spikes in recent years.
“In 2005 there was a spurt from one person committing burglaries and in 2006 there was a group of young guys doing caravans and then this woman as well.”
Sgt Brand said Queenscliff police recorded a “dramatic drop” in crime each time they caught one of the offenders.
“It does cause some concern with crime statistics when we have these single offenders out committing multiple crimes but apart from the three or four individuals over the past few years it’s a very low crime area. All of them have been caught, so we don’t have massive amounts of unsolved crime.”
A Victoria Police spokesperson said charging a single person with 300 offences “wasn’t unusual”.
“A lot of time with fraud in particular the fraud squad will lay that many charges against a particular person, if not more.”