Yesterday in the Melbourne County Court Kylie Renee Lynd, 37, was sentenced to 25 months’ imprisonment with 11 months to serve and 14 months suspended.

She has already spent 246 days in custody.

Last week Lynd pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool County Court to 60 charges, including obtaining property and financial advantage by deception, attempting to commit an indictable act and failing to answer bail.

In sentencing her yesterday, Judge Gerard Mullaly said that during a sustained burst of dishonesty Lynd wrote 85 cheques between May 31 and September 8 in 2005.

She used the cheques of up to $625,000 to open accounts at financial institutions and obtained cash advances. Judge Mullaly said Lynd was thwarted in her attempts in the majority of cases but did obtain cash and goods to the value of $98,395, of which $78,303 was recovered.

She received $20,0901 to which she was not entitled after writing cheques valued at $2,553,860.

Judge Mullaly said the offending involved an extremely large number of very large cheques.

He said on June 26, 2005, Lynd wrote a cheque for $550,000, on July 1 cheques for $225,000 and $325,000, on July 8 two cheques for $550,000 and on July 18 a cheque for $625,000.

The judge said Lynd was spoken to by police officers in mid-July but an aggravating feature of the case was that she started writing cheques again on September 6.

He said Lynd was to appear in a Warrnambool court in January 2006 but she failed to appear and remained at large until she was arrested on May 28 last year in New South Wales.

Judge Mullaly said Lynd had only one prior conviction and her rapid fire offending was hard to fathom even after considering her background.

He said Lynd was raised by her grandmother in northern Queensland as her mother was a drug user and her father a member of an outlawed motorcycle gang.

Lynd had two children with a man who became violent before forming a relationship with her second partner, Darrell Lynd, in 2001. 

He was a member of an outlawed motorcycle gang but after a heart attack he wanted to leave the gang, which was resisted, and the couple moved to Mount Gambier. 

Mr Lynd became paranoid and suicidal and on August 8, 2003, took his own life. 

Lynd found his body hanging from a clothesline. Soon after she took up with another man and they moved to a property near Hamilton with the pipe dream of developing an operating farm.

Lynd claimed it was her new partner who came up with the plan to pass cheques but she had carried out the scheme.

Judge Mullaly said Lynd was not thinking clearly when she embarked on her offending, which inevitably led to her arrest by Hamilton police. 

She then fled back to Queensland before settling in NSW.

 She is still wanted in South Australia and Queensland.

Lynd has been diagnosed with a post-traumatic stress disorder and her defence counsel submitted time already served in custody was a sufficient penalty.

Judge Mullaly said Lynd’s conduct had to be denounced and her scheme of offending was so extravagant she had to fail. 

He ordered she serve almost another three months in jail due to the gravity of her offending.