Fake ultrasound photos: guilty plea for woman involved

Rawinia Hayes, who operated an ultrasound business out of her Eaton home, faced court today and agreed to a deal with the prosecution for a guilty plea to six charges of accepting money for goods or services not provided, on the proviso that a number of other charges were dropped.

In January 2014, hundreds of woman came forward with identical ultrasound images given to them by Hayes from her business Amazing 4D Imaging.

The court heard in a period of 18 months between 2012 and 2014, Hayes sold ultrasound packages including DVD recordings and images to expectant mothers at a cost of $167 to $390.

Many of the photos were fake.

Prosecutor for the Commissioner for Consumer Protection Jason Derby told the court there was a “comfortable percentage” of women who received ultrasound images of children that were not theirs to warrant the court proceedings.

He said Hayes had accepted payment but failed to supply all parts of the package, taking advantage of the trust between the consumer and herself.

Mr Derby labelled it deliberate and reckless conduct which misled women wanting to keep a memento of their pregnancy.

Hayes' defence lawyer Michael Devlin admitted Hayes had very little training for the $38,000 machine which she learnt through a trial and error process.

He said the single USB storage device used by Hayes became mixed up between transferring the image from the ultrasound machine to the editing process on the computer.

The one USB device was used for Hayes’ many clients.

The “failure of the production” came under criticism from Magistrate Kelvin Fisher who questioned why there was not a single USB for each new client.

Hayes, who has since been diagnosed with breast cancer, intends to keep operating the business with proper guidelines in place.

She was fined $6000 and was ordered to pay court costs of $3410.