Two people have pleaded guilty to defrauding the Australian Taxation Office and knowingly giving false documents and receipts to an auditor while serving as police officers in the Hunter.
Kathryn Maree Goddard, 38, and Paul Hunter Macdonald, 46, - a couple who were working at Maitland at the time of the offences - fraudulently claimed thousands of dollars for clothes, travel, accomodation and other expenses in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 financial years.
They also both made false claims for donations to the charity Angel Flight worth hundreds of dollars and made claims for accommodation - Goddard at Port Macquarie and Macdonald at Tea Gardens - for police weapons training, where no such facilities exist.
An agreed statement of facts tendered to Newcastle Local Court on Monday noted that when the ATO's auditor made enquiries about their self-completed tax returns in early 2019, the pair knowingly produced false documents - including a forged signed letter from a superior officer with incorrect spelling for the name and the wrong rank.
Of the 86 documents Goddard produced, 50 were false - while Macdonald gave the ATO 12 false documents among the 71 that he lodged.
The prosecution argued the offending involved "a significant degree of planning and preparation".
Goddard and Macdonald - who are on suspension from the NSW Police Force due to the charges - have since repaid the money they falsely claimed.
Their defence lawyer applied for consideration of the pair's mental health under the Commonwealth Crimes Act, on account of their diagnoses of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome related to work.
But Magistrate Ron Maiden refused, with the court hearing that the medical evidence did not support the assertion that their PTSD had at least a partly casual effect on their offending.
Magistrate Maiden sentenced each to a two-year good behaviour bond and fined them $3000.
