A Justice of the Peace has admitted pretending to be a magistrate and forging official documents for the arrest of two people and the removal of children.
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Police thought the documents produced by Caroline Major, now 63, were valid orders and removed children from the care of adults, District Court Judge David Kent said on Friday.
Major endorsed an arrest warrant for a 37-year-old woman and her mother in January 2020 and also ordered for a child to be removed from their care.
Four months later she endorsed an warrant for the arrest of another woman and ordered the removal of five children in her care.
In each case the children were ordered to be delivered to the care of other people.
Major included the words "The Honourable Magistrate Major" on the documents.
Some were taken to a police station where officers were assured of their validity after inquiring about their legitimacy with a magistrates court, the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Police.
But on contacting a solicitor a woman found there was no apparent record of orders being made and they were likely illegitimate.
In response to an email from a Justice of the Peace in April 2020 Major claimed to have done research before making the orders and proffered an explanation about the need for the children to be returned to families, Judge Kent said in published sentencing remarks.
In March 2021 Major admitted endorsing the orders when police searched her house at Woorabinda in central Queensland.
Judge Kent said Major's actions were not an inadvertent overstep of her power nor a one-off incident.
Her offending struck at the heart of the legal system and breached the public's trust.
"The conduct was repeated efforts in which you deliberately, and with specific knowledge, exercised powers beyond those you were entitled to do, knowing that it required a magistrate," he said.
Judge Kent said Major was one of 15 children in her family who were all removed when she was three years old.
"This makes it perhaps more curious that you would be involved in removing these children illegally," he said.
Major - a grandmother of eight - had started a law degree, been consistently employed and has a minor criminal history for mostly public nuisance offences.
Judge Kent sentenced her to three years in jail, ordering the term be immediately suspended.
He took into account her guilty plea to one count of forgery with a circumstance of aggravation.
Australian Associated Press
