An elderly man will spend Christmas behind bars for lying about being a prisoner of war in order to scam welfare payments.
Arthur "Rex" Crane, 84, posed as a World War II veteran for 22 years before his deceit was finally uncovered in 2009 by a military historian who thought his story didn't add up.
Before his fraud was exposed, however, the former president of the Ex-POW Association of Australia claimed $689,491 in commonwealth war pension and disability payments.
He was not entitled to $464,409 of that amount.
Crane pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court to defrauding the commonwealth and obtaining financial advantage by deception.
He was sentenced on Tuesday to four years' jail, but will be released on a good behaviour bond after just six months.
Judge Marshall Irwin also ordered Crane repay $413,869 which is still outstanding, but said his age meant it was unlikely the full amount would ever be recouped.
The court was told Crane started offending in 1988 as a way of maintaining a friendship he had developed with two ex-POWs.
The lie soon spiralled out of control, and the court was told Crane conducted extensive research to back up claims he had been involved in a volunteer guerilla force against the Japanese at the age of 15.
He said he had been captured and tortured by the Japanese and sent to work on the Thai-Burma Death Railway during WWII.
In reality, he had never served in the military.
Military historian Lynette Silver investigated Crane in 2009 after he delivered a speech at the POW War Memorial in Ballarat, Victoria.
Ms Silver had researched the "stay-behind" groups set up in Malaya and Singapore to operate behind Japanese lines and knew that Crane's claims could not be true.
"I'd done so much work that I knew the names of everybody and I knew he wasn't one of them," she told reporters outside the Brisbane District Court.
"I was absolutely shell-shocked to think that somebody could have risen to that level in the community and for 22 years milked the public purse on a totally and permanently incapacitated pension."
Di Elliott told reporters her father had never received a cent from the government despite being held as a prisoner.
"He died in 1975 of his war injuries, and it wasn't recognised as war injuries back in those days.
"My dad had been through it and got nothing and this man hadn't been anywhere near it and received all that money and accolades from all his POW mates - it was very difficult," Ms Elliott said of the court hearing.
Judge Irwin acknowledged Crane had done some meritorious work for the ex-POW community in Australia.
However, Crane's lies had shown "little respect" to those who had been injured while serving their country.
"Your conduct can only be regarded as an insult to those who fought, those who were captured, those who were tortured and those who died," Judge Irwin said.
In a written statement released by his lawyers, Crane said he was "deeply offended" by his own conduct.
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