A GOLD Coast mother who produced dodgy drivers licences and registration certificates for a criminal drug syndicate will spend the next six months behind bars.
A GOLD Coast mother who produced dodgy drivers licences and registration certificates for a criminal drug syndicate will spend the next six months behind bars.
Former Department of Main Road employee, Sheree Tritton, 35, was this afternoon sentenced to four years imprisonment in the Southport District Court after pleading guilty to 88 charges of corruption, one count of fraud and five counts of attempted corruption.
She will have the remainder of her sentence suspended after she has served six months in jail.
The charges came after Tritton was investigated by the Crime and Corruption Commission in 2013.
She produced 31 vehicle registrations and 57 drivers licences or drivers license upgrades during her casual employment with the Queensland government department.
She produced the dodgy licence and registration certificates over a period of 18 months between July 2012 and December 2013 and received some $20,000 from alleged drug kingpin Joshua Thornbury for doing so.
Recipients of the goods linked or related to Thornbury.
Many were unable to get licences due to court orders or had not undergone the training for certain licence types illegally issued by Tritton.
Thornbury was dating a friend of Tritton’s, Crystal Clement, who introduced the pair and arranged the dodgy registration scheme, the court was this morning told.
Thornbury will be sentenced for trafficking in cannabis in the Brisbane Supreme Court later this month.
In March, Clement was sentenced to three years jail for her role in the scheme but was granted immediate parole.
Thornbury and his brother Terrence Thornbury are alleged to have import $30 million worth of cannabis to the Gold Coast from Victoria.
Crown prosecutor Ben Jackson said Tritton did not come up with the “spin-off operation” but “wholly embraced it” even asking colleagues to continue to produce the licences after she was sacked.
Defence barrister Alastair McDougall, instructed by Jason Grant, said Tritton had suffered from anxiety and depression since the age of 14.
He said she was suffering from post traumatic stress at the time of the incident following periods of domestic violence.
The court heard Tritton had no criminal history and had not committed any other offences since being charged in 2013.
Judge Helen Bowskill QC took into consideration Tritton’s guilty plea, the fact she had suffered from mental illness and her remorse.
She said her actions were not only dishonest but “dangerous”, having provided licenses to people who were expressly prohibited from having them.
“It is jeopardising public safety allowing people and vehicles to be on the road that otherwise would not have been there,” Ms Bowskill said.
