A woman who conspired with her brother to get him out of prison after learning of their grandmother’s death went to such lengths that she “catfished” another dead person’s Facebook page before adorning it with their gran’s photo.

Even when siblings Natalia Merrin and William James Merrin discussed their maternal grandmother’s death over the phone, they mentioned that they had no intention of attending her funeral in Minginui, Bay of Plenty, on July 8 last year.

Instead, William was going to meet up with his partner.

William Merrin has already been jailed for his part in the scheme.

Now his sister, 28, has appeared before Judge Stephen Clark in the Hamilton District Court, hoping to avoid a prison term.

‘A crude attempt to deceive’

William Merrin, of Te Awamutu, was remanded in custody on September 16, 2023, on several charges, including robbery, assault with intent to rob, and dangerous driving.

Over several months, he filed multiple bail applications, all of which were unsuccessful.

On July 7 last year, while in custody at Auckland Prison in Pāremoremo, the 29-year-old learned his maternal grandmother had passed away.

The patched Mongrel Mob member began making inquiries with family and asked them to help with an application for urgent bail.

He also phoned his sister on “numerous occasions”.

In the phone calls, the pair discussed how they knew the funeral was being held on July 8 at a marae in Minginui, but neither had any intention of attending.

The pair instead formulated a plan by falsifying details of the funeral, including that it was being held on July 9.

Natalia also agreed to write a letter of support and the pair discussed that if he was granted bail, he would instead go and meet with his partner.

Natalia sent her letter and a copy of their grandmother’s death certificate to her brother’s lawyer, stating the funeral was on July 9 at 2.30pm and that she would be responsible for transporting him.

William James Merrin, 29, of Te Awamutu, was described by a judge as the real driver behind a fake bail scheme. Photo / NZ Police

Upon receiving the application, the Crown Solicitor’s office asked police to carry out urgent inquiries to confirm the application’s validity.

Police then discovered the funeral happened on July 8 – the day they were carrying out their inquiries.

They also found a Facebook page that Natalia had created, or “catfished ... in a crude attempt to deceive both police and the court”.

When police rang Natalia, she claimed to have no knowledge of the “catfished” Facebook page or that her grandmother’s funeral had already taken place.

When spoken to by police about her actions, Natalia declined to comment about the allegations but instead verbally abused officers.

Counsel Alvina Tu’inukuafe said Natalia was remorseful and a pre-sentence report had assessed her as being at a low risk of reoffending and harm to others.

She also had a suitable property to serve a home detention sentence, which she urged the judge to hand down.

‘I was manipulated by my brother’

In a pre-sentence report, Natalia said she had been manipulated by her brother and didn’t realise how serious her actions were or that she’d done wrong.

Judge Clark had previously given Natalia a sentence indication of 15 months’ jail and her counsel had urged the judge to convert that to home detention.

“You say you were manipulated by your brother. I simply don’t know,” Judge Clark said.

“I have seen your brother.

“Clearly, he’s a fully patched Mongrel Mob member and has tattoos and has a far more serious criminal history than you do.”

However, the judge said this sort of offending was “serious” and “totally selfish, particularly on the part of your brother”.

“That means that judges become sceptical about bail applications.

“A normal response with these offences, where people have falsified these applications, is imprisonment ... but I do get the sense that the real driver in this was your brother and he has been jailed for it.”

Although Natalia had a criminal history, it was “modest”, so on her charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice and theft, Judge Clark agreed to commute it to seven and a half months’ home detention.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.