THE GRANNY WHO RIPPED OFF THE WELFARE SYSTEM

One of the areas I worked during my policing career was Fraud. In policing parlance, ‘fraudies’ (the colloquial term) are perceived as the suit wearing, latte sipping officers who have the time to sit back, ponder, prognosticate and simply take their time with their investigations. Unlike other areas of policing that require quick responses, ugly crime scenes, dangerous offenders and the need to think on your feet, fraudies simply work in a stress free environment.

Well, that’s somewhat true, however there are the rare occasions where you land a doozie of a job and this post is about that!

To most outsiders 76-year-old Ann Lillian Price would’ve appeared to have lived a fruitful life; procuring an enviable real estate portfolio on the far north coast of NSW and in parts of Victoria which earned her almost $100,000-a-year in rent; a princely sum in the early 1990s, especially when you consider the average yearly wage was only $22,000. She’d gained the reputation as a socialite in her adopted hometown of Ballina, in the North Coast of New South Wales, close to the Queensland boarder, indeed she was known as the small town’s ‘queen’, because, apart from hosting lavish parties at her waterfront home which were attended by politicians and prominent businessmen, she also had a penchant for life’s luxuries. Price travelled first-class on regular overseas holidays; she had an expensive silver-coloured Mercedes Benz parked in her garage; she enjoyed shopping sprees for jewellery; employed a gardener to tend her lawns; her house was furnished with quality antique pieces, luxury watercraft were often moored at the jetty attached to her property and she enjoyed expensive meals in fine restaurants with her partner, Kenneth Myles Carruthers. No-one would have had any reason to suspect the elderly, well-to-do couple were doing anything more than simply enjoying their just desserts for years of hard work and astute investments. However, Ann Lillian Price had a secret which, once its audacity was exposed, stunned the nation. You see, not long after she checked her mailboxes on Wednesday, March 25th 1992 to see whether her correspondence from the then Department of Social Security [DSS] and Department of Veteran Affairs [DVA] had arrived to confirm that her latest nine welfare payments would be lodged in her bank account the following day. The investigation found the (on appearance only) sweet old lady with money to burn had, over the course of 23-years, ripped off $1.2 million dollars from the Federal Government’s coffers via false pretences to obtain her fraudulent pensions.

It was the early beginnings of using the internet and Government agencies including the DSS and DVA had only recently started to use computers that bared the ability to cross reference information between their departments after the Data-Matching Act (Assistance and Tax) was passed by Federal Parliament in 1990. While the introduction of The Act had been fiercely debated by politicians and civil libertarians who expressed their concerns about privacy issues, the law allowed all of the data the various welfare agencies had on file to be more easily cross-referenced with Australian Taxation Office [ATO] records. In time, The Data-Matching Act would prove to be the undoing of numerous social welfare cheats, but none were as big a fish as Ann Lillian Price, who I’ll simply refer to as ‘Ann’ from this point on to avoid any confusion with the many alias’s she lived her life of crime by.

The reason social welfare departments were vulnerable to fraudulent activity before The Act was passed was in the pre-online days checking such things as proof of identity was a nightmare for public servants because it meant cross-checking forests of paper documents that were filed in storage basements and spare rooms in buildings across the nation. It was a tough, albeit not impossible, assignment to catch a social welfare fraudster who’d applied for pensions in different states, but to catch them was a huge commitment of time and resources, and that allowed thieves like Ann to profit because they weren’t vetted anywhere near as rigorously - or vigorously - as they are now days.

On June 6th 1992, a routine data-matching exercise between the DSS and DVA raised a red flag when it isolated three pension recipients who were all born on November 13th, 1915. The names entered into the system were Ann L. Price; Ann L. Price-Pontifex and Annie L. Ramsay. The similarities in the names obviously raised as much suspicion as the birthdate, and the DSS referred the matter to their Fraud Control Unit whose preliminary investigations suggested they’d unearthed a large-scale fraud. The investigation ascertain she appeared to have at least 13 different identities, and we were amazed that she had managed to get away with it. Our investigations also uncovered that Price’s so-called ‘soul mate and confidante’ – Carruthers – had fraudulently netted $46,000 by claiming a Veterans Affairs pension in conjunction with other social security payments by making a false statements on his DVA application. He would eventually serve 200 hours community service when the law finally caught up with him and he pleaded guilty to his crime.

During the early stages of our investigation I was adamant Ann had to have had some sort of criminal history. I contacted the various state police forces for their help, but an Ann Lillian Price did not appear in any of their systems. Nevertheless, we had more than enough evidence to obtain search warrants from the Newcastle Magistrates Court under the Commonwealth Crimes Act of 1914, and 10-days later was driving 600km up the Pacific Highway to execute search warrants on 10 Norlyn Avenue, Ballina – which I understood was Ann’s main place of residence – and another place that belonged to her at Latta Avenue, Ballina. As I mentioned, our evidence suggested there was at least 13 aliases attached to Ann’s address, and I remember thinking on the long drive that I would be terribly embarrassed if we knocked on the door and walked in on 13 grannies in the loungeroom knitting cardigans and scarves for their grandchildren. When I knocked on the door of what we believed was Ann’s main residence and while the Mercedes Benz was parked in the driveway, there appeared to be no-one at home. When her gardener eventually told us that his bosses were in town we waited in our car and watched the property. A little while later the pair returned home in their other car, a Mitsubishi Magna, and we watched as a plump old lady with bluish-grey hair waddled towards the front door of her home while her partner carried the shopping bags. I knocked on the door politely introducing myself as an officer from the AFP; however, before I could finish the rest of my sentence about ‘having reason to believe’ my Sergeant barged forward and said loudly: ‘Listen, we know what you’re up to, just give us what we need!’ Well, Ann’s response was breathtaking because far from being shocked by the arrival of two AFP officers investigating her alleged fraud, she simply turned on her heel and without saying a word she marched towards the study where she opened two drawers in what was Caruthers’s desk and she pulled out her collection of bank passbooks, bank statements and an assortment of credit cards, including two gold Mastercards. She also handed over a Victorian driver’s license, and it made me grin to see that despite the ill-gotten wealth she had accumulated over the previous two decades, she carried a Campbell’s Cash & Carry card (pre Costco) which allowed for her to purchase at a discounted price the drinks and food that were stored in a large cool room at the rear of their house for the parties and other social events she hosted for Ballina’s hoi polloi. Among the evidence we recovered during our search were credit card receipts for some expensive jewellery she’d purchased while on holiday overseas; a receipt from a travel agency for first-class travel which amounted to $8128 and evidence she’d taken at least 12 overseas trips to a number of countries including Fiji, Singapore, Hawaii, mainland USA, China, Japan and Europe. We noticed that there was a record of her holiday on Norfolk Island, a favourite destination for senior citizens.

When we asked whether she was going to confess to the fraud she replied with what I can only describe as an Arctic-coolness which didn’t match up to her appearance as a grandmotherly type: “You have everything, what more do you want?” She was certainly hard-bitten, and while she conducted a tape-recorded interview in which she admitted to receiving up to 10 social security pensions over a 23-year span. Ann knew she was caught, and she glared fiercely at before snarling: “So, how much of a lag am I going to get for this?”. Her use of the world ‘lag’ – which is these days a little-used term for doing time behind bars – confirmed my initial suspicion that Ann L. Price; Ann L. Price-Pontifex, Annie L. Ramsay or whoever the hell she was, was an old jail bird. In our interviews she expressed no remorse for her crimes, and if I had to describe her demeanour it was that of an angry person . . . Ann was seething and we were the focus of her fury. Her world had come crashing down, and as she stared daggers at us she demanded to know: “How am I going to survive now you’ve taken all of my money?” It was, of course, impossible to feel any sympathy for someone who had fallen victim to her own greed and selfishness. As we continued our search Ann indicated that she had a bad heart and requested that we spare her from the trauma of being taken to the Ballina Police Station to be charged. We decided there was no need to do that for a few reasons which included her health condition; her age and the fact that she had also complied with the requirements of issuing a summons. However, I was to discover a little later on the reason why she didn’t want to go anywhere near the police station was because she didn’t want to be photographed or to have her fingerprints taken. We also found out that Ann had successfully used the same ploy to avoid having her real identity revealed during an encounter with the Victorian police - and, as I was to realise thanks to the assistance of an investigative journalist who’d sniffed out the story, she had good reason for that because apart from being imprisoned for forgery and other crimes of deceit, she’d served time for her role in Melbourne’s illegal backyard abortion business in the post-war years.

When we returned to Newcastle I made further enquiries to the Victorian and South Australian police with the request that they check whether Ann Lillian Price – or any of her long list of aliases with the corresponding birthdates - had a criminal record. It didn’t take long before I received a detailed report from Melbourne which confirmed she was well known to them, having over the years racked up a number of convictions for dishonesty. Her record made for interesting reading because Ann Price-Pontifex first came to the notice of Victorian police in 1955 for forging and uttering (the passing of a forged document). She was convicted and placed on a three-year good behaviour bond. In 1960 she was charged with larceny and fined 15 pounds, and the reason why she escaped much heavier punishment was because the police failed to place her criminal record before the magistrate, meaning he was unaware of her previous conviction. In 1963 Ann was sentenced to two-years imprisonment after being arrested and charged with forging and uttering and false pretence. In 1971 Ann’s pattern of dishonesty continued when she was again charged with forging and uttering when it was discovered she’d altered the will of a Millie McCormack’s shortly before the woman’s death. Ann changed it to direct that her estate be left to the private nurse who had cared for her . . . Ann. She was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court to eight years imprisonment, with a minimum of four to serve. She successfully appealed the sentence in 1972 and was discharged after entering into a recognisance to be of good behaviour for four years. To try and keep her on the straight and narrow, the court made her pay a $5000 surety. She was still receiving her illegitimate welfare payments at this time and on the day she was released from prison Ann brazenly applied for – and received - another DSS pension under the alias of Joanne Price. Indeed, when she was sent back behind bars after a counter-appeal by the Crown, Ann not only retained her position as Governing Director of Pontifex Holdings Pty Ltd – her company which managed her real estate transactions - but the government continued to dutifully make welfare payments to Joanne Price’s bank account. We also learnt she a lot about her character when we saw Ann had spent four years in Pentridge as a result of her involvement with illegal abortions, a crime which was punishable in Victoria at the time with 15-years in prison. There was a social stigma about being an unmarried mother in the 1950s and women who fell pregnant to, for instance, a married man, were often left to fend for themselves. Of course, it was unfair and there are many sad stories of the lengths women would go to in their attempt to induce a miscarriage by drinking bleach, having an extremely hot bath, move heavy furniture or even attempting to do it themselves with a knitting needle or crochet hook. It was amid this sad and sorry background that illegal backyard abortionist plied their trade, and in some cases the end result of their “work” was the death of a poor women who was simply desperate for help. This environment of fear and social pressure presented an opportunity for Ann to make what I think many might term “blood money”, and she was arrested after being caught sourcing those unfortunate women in need of an abortion.

It wasn’t until Ann appeared before the NSW District Court as Australia’s greatest Social Welfare fraudster in 1993, that the police gained an overview of the life and times of Ann Lillian Price (nee Ramsay) and her background was as colourful as you’d expect. She was born on November 13th, 1915 near Forbes in country NSW; the third of six children. However, both of her parents died at an early age, forcing her to move in with relatives who lived interstate. After experiencing some difficulties in her new surrounds, she was sent to a number of homes in Victoria and NSW that belonged to the church. As soon as she was old enough to fend for herself, Ann Ramsay became a nurse, which, a forensic examination of her finances discovered would ultimately provide a profitable, albeit, illegitimate revenue stream because she used the identities of some of her patients to claim pensions. Ann married Eric John Price-Pontifex, an engineer, in the Victorian country town of Wangaratta in 1936 and the couple left for Malaysia where Eric worked for the government. As the respectable Mrs Price-Pontifex, Ann grew accustomed to the privileged lifestyle she enjoyed in what was still the British colonial-era in Malaysia – she even told the court that period of her life, of wealth and privilege, was the reason for her multiple frauds. After the outbreak of World War II, Ann was forced to return to Australia with her infant son to escape the Japanese army’s march through south-east Asia. Eric remained behind to fight the Japanese as a member of the Malaya Reserve, and while it was understood he returned to Australia many years later Ann maintained she never laid eyes on him again. She worked a number of jobs upon her return, and they ranged from running a restaurant in Adelaide to working as a private nurse in Victoria. In 1955, Ann Price-Pontifex commenced a relationship with a recently divorced man named Kenneth Carruthers and they accumulated great wealth and a blue chip property portfolio – all at the expense of honest and hard-working Aussie taxpayers

Our forensic investigations into her web of welfare deceit was as equally fascinating and we ascertained Ann collected her first – legitimate – welfare payment, a widow’s pension, under her married name of Ann Price-Pontifex on Armistice Day – November 11th – 1969 when she was aged 53. However, records also noted she had been refused a pension a few months earlier when the consulting General Practitioner ruled she wasn’t entitled to an invalid pension because she wasn’t legally blind. Her first taste of welfare fraud was telling the Department that she’d paid rent for a property on Hotham Street, St Kilda, however, it wasn’t until many years later that it was realised Pontifex Holdings Pty Ltd. – her company - owned it. Following that, her incredible trail of deceit read like this:

· 30/7/1970: Second time lucky – Ann received an invalid blind pension after applying for one under her maiden name of Ann L. Ramsay and giving her birthdate as 11/11/1915. Her date of birth, and information about her parents, was similar to what she entered on her application for a widow’s pension. Total illegal earnings as Ann L. Ramsay: $91,028.00

· 10/8/1972: She assumed the identity of one of her sisters, Joanne Price, giving her birthdate as the 22/8/1922. It seems she quickly realised the advantage of the invalid pension was they were granted with the applicant being free of any accountability. Total illegal earnings as Joanne Price: $80,691.10

· 24/1/1974: Ann applied for an aged pension under the alias of Rudy Cattai, born 3/6/1913, an individual who, because she was a ward of the state, had no knowledge of her parents identity. The real Rudy Cattai was one of the patients Ann looked after when she ran a nursing home in the 1950s. After Rudy Cattai passed away her identity was stolen so Ann could obtain even more welfare benefits. Total illegal earnings as Rudy Cattai: $87,934.30

· 17/10/1974: Ann applied for an aged pension under the name of Millie McCormack, giving her date of birth as 20/10/1920. She convinced the interviewing officers that she was an orphan and had no birth details. The Department showed compassion in this case because after making its assessment, the officer in charge decided to grant her a pension. It’s breathtaking to think that Ann adopted this identity because, as I mentioned earlier, in 1971 she was imprisoned for altering McCormack’s will in a brazen attempt to seize the poor woman’s estate. Total illegal earnings as Millie McCormack: $87,275.50

· 12/6/1975: On this occasion Ann adopted her mother’s maiden name and applied for yet another pension as Lillian Ann Wakefield, born 14/10/1918. This was the only pension that was ever challenged by the Department and the payments ceased in 1985. It can only be assumed Ann did not challenge the decision because she realised as someone with nine other pensions it might be unwise to create waves. Total illegal earnings as Lillian Ann Wakefield: $37,384.00

· 7/6/1979: Ann received another aged pension, this time under the name of Hazel Dove and whose birthdate was 22/5/1913. She gave her address as 3/7 Lewis Street in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla, and the officers were told she paid rent to her cousin; Mrs L. Price. The truth is Ann owned that property and she was, effectively, paying rent to herself. In 1975 she purchased a unit in Malvern Road, Prahran in Melbourne, and by April 1981 it acted as her ‘mail exchange’ because that was where she received correspondence for seven of the fortnightly pension cheques she was receiving. Her cunning knew no bounds; Ann had indicated on some of her applications that she was paying rent to various people at this address. Total illegal earnings as Hazel Dove: $74,649.70

· In 1981 Ann and Carruthers moved to the balmy NSW north coast to enjoy her ‘retirement’ after deigning the Victorian climate as being no longer to her liking. However, there was no stopping her life of fraud, and on the 18/10/1984 Ann was granted another widow’s pension under the name of Jean Pontifex, born 25/8/1921. Ann stated on her application that she lost her husband in 1943 during World War II. Our investigations not only uncovered that Jean was Ann’s sister, and whose twin was Joanne. ‘Jean’ said she lived rent-free with her sister near Ballina at Natan Court, New Brighton – yet another lie because Ann had purchased that property in April 1982 before gaining a tidy profit after developing – and selling - it. Total illegal earnings as Jean Pontifex: $52,394.50

· Her appetite for ill-gotten gains was insatiable and on the 3/12/1985 Ann Price posing as Rudy Cattai, the identity she assumed in 1974, advised the Department that she was in dire straits because she had nowhere to live. She requested emergency rental funds, and not only was ‘Rudy’ back-paid the amount of money that was ‘owed’ to her by the government, but she was also granted the emergency rental assistance she’d requested. The reality of Ann’s financial situation was from December 3rd, 1985 she proceeded to sell property that was owned by Kenneth Carruthers and Ann Lillian Price at Tintenbar, NSW, for a tidy profit of $243,000. As the sole owner of Natan Court, Ocean shores she also made $236,000 profit over seven-years. At the time of lodging her claim for rental assistance, it was realised Ann had purchased her waterfront property at Ballina for $98,000. There was other paperwork located by the DSS which proved she had requested emergency payments on all of the pensions she was receiving for either a large part, or, in some cases, the entire time she accepted the payments. ‘Joanne Price’ claimed she was paying rent to a landlord named ‘Carruthers’, and in 1987 an officer from the DSS’s office at Byron Bay telephoned ‘Carruthers’ to verify whether Joanne Price was renting accommodation from him. The male at the other end of the line confirmed that she was, but he informed the officer Joanne was away visiting a sick sister. A few days later Ann proved she possessed more front than a shop window when she phoned the officer to request rental assistance to help pay Carruthers for her accommodation. The requests for the funds, which were reserved for people who are only one step away from becoming destitute, was further proof Ann Lillian Price was determined to capitalise on any opportunity for her own financial gain.

· 20/9/1990: Ann received a Department of Veterans Affairs service pension (as an eligible spouse) in the name of Lillian Pontifex, date of birth 13/11/1915. At last her greed brought about her undoing because this request allowed for the successful cross-matching of the DSS and DVA data which flagged the likelihood of multiple frauds. When she was caught Ann swore the only property she owned was the house she and Carruthers jointly owned at Latta Ave, Ballina. Of course, it was soon realised she was the sole owner of the waterfront property 100m up the road as well as other properties in Ballina which earned her a tidy rental income.

On top of all of that, Ann’s legitimate pension which she’d received since 1969 was tallied at $88,106.20 While the majority of her wealth was obtained illegally, Ann proved that she certainly possessed an entrepreneur’s spirit. People who were unaware of her contemptible background described her as a savvy businesswoman with a great nose for purchasing and managing real estate. It seemed as though her uncanny ability to seek and secure bargain properties which generated healthy rental income was widely known throughout the district – and it was respected. However, little did her neighbours know she was receiving food vouchers from the government and other benefits that a woman of her so-called social standing had no need for. I also understand that at around this time Ann was making mistakes, using the wrong name and forgetting other details about her alias’s because the list was so long and, as she grew older, her mind was not as sharp as it once was.

Ann’s court case became a running joke. Firstly, the Magistrate who was assigned to hear the case in Ballina needed to excuse himself from duty because it turned out he rented his property from the defendant! The case was transferred to Coffs Harbour, but after one too many adjournments due to Ann citing ill-health, failing eyesight, problems with her defence lawyers and her dramatic collapse in the courtroom, the trial was rescheduled to the NSW District Court in Sydney. Adding to the circus at Coffs Harbour was the media’s interest in the case, and I still vividly recall the judge’s anger when the frenzied pack entered his court to film Ann being taken away by paramedics after she collapsed. His honour reacted furiously, and he even threatened to have them held in contempt of court.

Indeed, the media would ultimately help Ann get a lighter sentence Judge Brian Gallen said she had suffered at the hands of the media, being made a virtual prisoner in her own home by them as they hunted out the story. It really hurt to hear of the media’s interference helping Ann as she stood before Judge Gallen in Sydney on May 28th, 1993, having pleaded guilty to 10 counts of false pretences and nine counts of defrauding the Commonwealth under the Crimes Act of 1914. In his summing up of the case his Honour stated “greed” was the sole motive behind Ann’s colossal fraud before sentencing her to a maximum of six-years in prison with a minimum of two years. The idea that she’d been in anyway “punished” by the media made me shake my head in disbelief, and while the decision was made by a respected judge it only added to my theory that the old convict-day mentality which decrees it’s ‘OK to screw the government’ is entrenched in the Australian character. Adding to my sense of disappointment was the sentence was hardly a deterrent for other fraudsters who were out there and ripping off the system of money that was set aside for people in genuine hardship.

The government took action to recover some of the money Ann had stolen via the sale of properties and by seizing monies from her bank accounts. The DPP was not happy with the sentence and appealed against its leniency. Ann, true to her form, wasted no time in not only appealing the severity of her sentence as she also lodged a bail application. Ann’s appeal was heard and dismissed it after only one hour of submissions. However, it wasn’t all bad news for Ann, because the DPP dropped their appeal against her sentence on the same day. I went to Silverwater Prison in Sydney to drop off some property that belonged to her and when I asked the prison officers how the old woman was faring, one of them chuckled and said she was thriving. It turned out she was so well regarded by the other prisoners because of her criminal history, things like time in Pentridge impress criminals, she was elevated to ‘Top Dog’ status.

In the summer of 2014, Ann L. Price passed away at the fine old age of 99. Far be it for me to suggest she made a deal with the devil to live for so long . . . but . . . based on her life’s story, who knows what she did? The post script to Ann’s story, ought to be a sobering lesson for those in government, and anyone who works in the DSS because when she was being cross-examined during the sentencing procedure by the Commonwealth’s [DPP] Prosecutor, Sarah McNaughton, Ann had no intention to accept what she did was wrong. She instead pointed her finger squarely at the government for [in her words] ‘allowing these loopholes in the first place’.