A NSW dockworker has been found guilty of workers’ compensation fraud after he lied about working up to 50 hours a week as a security guard while claiming compensation for injuries sustained in his first job as a forklift driver.
Ronald Perrine, a 46-year-old store man from Welby, west of Wollongong, claimed that in September 2000 his left wrist had become too damaged to continue working after driving a forklift.
His employer accepted his claims and Perrine began receiving weekly compensation totaling $19,059 from August 2004 to April 2007, but during this time Perrine took on a second job as a security guard and was receiving cash payments in envelopes.
A WorkCover NSW investigation found Perrine had been dishonest on numerous occasions in deliberately misleading representatives acting to protect the Workers Compensation Scheme.
Perrine said he was working around 12 to 16 hours a week when he was in fact working around 50 hours and not informing WorkCover NSW, and his pay slips and group certificate did not reflect the true income he was receiving from his second job.
Perrine received an eight-month jail term, fully-suspended, and a six-month good behaviour bond, while he was also ordered to repay the money he had fraudulently received in compensation, fined $1500 and ordered to pay WorkCover’s legal costs.