A married couple who staged a car crash to commit insurance fraud were brought undone and convicted due to a "combination of bad luck, bad planning", a judge has found.
"And a poor understanding of how experts could determine what the offenders said about the circumstances of the collision was untrue," Acting Justice Peter Berman said on Friday during scathing sentencing remarks.
Police and multiple insurance companies began investigating husband Rabea Fares, 48, and wife Lina Faris, 44, after their involvement in a crash on Duffy's Eucumbene Drive in February 2020.
"This was no accident at all," the judge said, before handing Fares a two-year prison sentence and a one-year non-parole period.
"This was done as part of a plan hashed by the people in the cars to profit by making dishonest claims to their insurers."
Faris received the same head sentence but would, with hardship consideration given to the family's four children, be allowed to serve hers in the community by way of an intensive correction order.
However, Justice Berman made clear the woman "deserved" to spend time in custody for her role in the deceptive crimes and said there was something "distasteful" about relying on hardship to family in defence.
"When they committed these offences together in full knowledge their children would suffer were they sentenced to full time jail," the judge said.
In November, a jury found the married couple of 24-years guilty of numerous charges, including attempting to, by deception, dishonestly obtain a financial advantage from someone else.
With that verdict, jurors likely rejected Faris' claim she was driving an Audi SUV at the speed limit and in the middle of her lane when she "felt a big bang behind her".
Forensic evidence indicated the car was actually stationary and parked on the side of the road when a BMW sports car crashed into its rear.
Evidence also proved the couple knew the man driving that BMW, despite claims to police they didn't.
Fares and that driver, Adam Hasan Kilani, had spoken on the phone hours earlier. By coincidence, a police officer on the scene had attended an address years earlier where the two men were working as painters.
The husband and wife filed claims for the Audi, which was insured for $55,000, and third party claims for injuries suffered.
Kilani's BMW was "grossly over-insured" for $113,000 more than he paid for it and he has separately admitted to charges relating to the crash.
A pre-sentence report author noted there was "no suggestion the offenders had significant debt or were in financial difficulties".
Therefore, the judge said there was no evidence the offences were committed out of need "and are more likely to have been motivated by greed".
Acting Justice Berman described the staging of the crash as not "a spur of the moment thing", which involved several planned lies to insurers and emergency services.
"Their deliberate crash likely caused a diversion of important community resources away from people with more genuine needs," he said.
Faris and Fares have maintained their innocence and, considering their lack of insight into the crimes, the judge said the pair had low prospects of rehabilitation.
"Clearly they are not remorseful for what they have done," he said.
Fares, whose criminal history includes assault and an act of indecency without consent, will be eligible for parole in March 2025.
