A former public servant used dozens of forged medical certificates to con the federal government into paying her more than $6000 to do nothing.
Queanbeyan woman Jennifer London, 56, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to 50 counts of using a forged document for a public official to accept as genuine.
She represented herself in Queanbeyan Local Court, telling magistrate Roger Clisdell she did not want to obtain legal advice before making the admissions.
An agreed statement of facts reveals London worked on the childcare service helpdesk at the former federal Department of Education, Skills and Employment during her more than five years of offending.
Between March 2016 and July 2021, she submitted 70 forged medical certificates to her supervisors, enabling her to access paid and unpaid leave.
Most of the forgeries, which purported to be from doctors at the Brindabella Family Practice, related to her own supposedly ill health.
Others enabled her to take carer's leave to look after her partner and daughter.
In reality, neither she nor her relatives attended the medical practice on the dates the certificates were said to have been issued.
London managed to access more than 1000 hours of paid and unpaid leave by using the false documents.
The paid leave component cost taxpayers $6316.50.
London's poor attendance at work raised red flags among her superiors, who began "actively managing" the issue in 2020.
The situation finally came to a head in May 2021, when a supervisor identified "a number of anomalies" between London's absences and the corresponding medical certificates.
The discovery led bureaucrats to call London into a meeting in August 2021, when she was formally advised of the allegations against her.
The offender resigned the following day and was eventually charged.
Following the entry of the guilty pleas on Tuesday morning, Mr Clisdell listed the 56-year-old's case for sentencing on September 5.
