By Ben Butler
THE woman who stole more than $19 million from collapsed retailer Clive Peeters traded in fraudulently obtained real estate to escape from her ''depressing and bleak'' life, a court has been told.
From an ''obsession'' with online trading in collectable soft toys, former Clive Peeters accountant Sonya Causer turned to buying and selling property using the company's money, the court heard.
''You then have to throw into that the delusion that she was a guru of property,'' her counsel, Con Heliotis, QC, told the Supreme Court at a plea hearing yesterday. ''In reality, she didn't do all that well.''
Causer, 39, has pleaded guilty to 24 counts of theft over the fraud, which helped cause the collapse of Clive Peeters in May.
She was remanded yesterday for sentencing on August 16.
Crown prosecutor Peter Kidd said Ms Causer should serve a minimum sentence of between five and eight years in jail.
But Mr Heliotis asked Justice Jack Forrest to take into account her early guilty plea, remorse, co-operation with police and her ''rather bleak life''.
A minimum sentence of between 2½ and three years would be ''more appropriate'', he said.
He said Causer had no friends to help her cope with two autistic children and a husband, Michael, who is addicted to cannabis.
Before she started stealing in July 2007, Causer's daily routine involved getting up at 5.30am so that the children could be dropped off at care before she started work at 8.30am, Mr Heliotis said.
After coming home, she would put the children, aged four and six, to bed and do one or two hours of Clive Peeters-related work.
''At 9pm she would go on the internet and indulge her obsession with something called Beanie Kids,'' Mr Heliotis said.
Those two hours trading on the internet were an ''escape'' and ''she was then able to turn that obsession into the crime she has committed.''
Causer found the properties online and never went to auctions, he said.
With the $19.3 million reaped from Clive Peeters over two years of theft she bought 44 properties. Causer also bought two cars and $10,000 worth of jewellery.
Mr Heliotis read from interviews with investigators in which Causer said she felt ''possessed''.
''It was never about the money,'' Causer told investigators.
''There was no reason apart from I've got two autistic kids and I've got to provide for them for the rest of their lives, I suppose.
''It wasn't the property itself, it was the negotiations and dealing with all these people.
''With the two children, I didn't go anywhere … I had no idea how much I took. I was mortified when I was told.''
As she sold property, Causer rolled the proceeds into new purchases, Mr Heliotis said.
''It was a need to escape that led to an obsession with buying and selling.''
Mr Heliotis said Causer's case was the first in his many years at the bar where he had not been able to find someone willing to give character evidence.
This was because she lived a lonely life with no friends and no one to confide in. ''And, little by little, that came to include her husband,'' he said.
Causer's marriage was all but over and after handing back the properties she bought she had no assets, Mr Heliotis said. ''When she finishes her term in prison she will come out to no career, no marriage and no assets.''
Mr Kidd, for the Crown, said he accepted evidence that Causer was suffering a delusional disorder, but said she was not ''markedly impaired''.
''This falls into the category of a large-scale serious fraud. General deterrence still looms large when it comes to sentencing Ms Causer,'' he said.