SHE spent two years drafting false, baseless threats against her own life, and those of her children and fellow public servants, to score holidays, time off and compensation payments.

On Tuesday, Tabitha Lean left the District Court through its front doors, permitted to serve her three-year minimum term at home caring for the very children whose lives she menaced.

Her partner, Simon Craig Peisley, was not so fortunate.

Despite Lean concocting and starting her bizarre scheme without his involvement, Peisley left via the cell elevator and will be in Yatala Labour Prison until at least February 2020.

In sentencing, Judge Barry Beazley said the duo were equally culpable for defrauding SA Health’s program for Aboriginal patients, and so deserved identical sentences.

media_camera Kids’ clothing stained with red ink as blood were among the fake threats made by Tabitha Lean and Simon Peisley. Source: District Court.

However, he said other factors had determined the fate of Lean — a “hardworking” and “highly respected” public servant and member of the Aboriginal community.

Chief among those, he said, was her status as “the epicentre of the emotional universe” of the couple’s three children, who were themselves victims of her “outrageous” conduct.

“I do not know why this offending occurred (but) you have a great deal of ability and a great deal going for you,” he said.

“You have children to care for (and) you have a chance to put all of this behind you and make a life for yourself and your family.

“Do not mess this up — understand?”

Woman who also faked "outrageous" SA Health threats given 6yr, 8mth home detention sentence so she can care for their 3 children. @theTiser — Sean Fewster (@SeanFewster) February 20, 2017

Lean, 39, and Peisley, 41, were found guilty at trial of more than 40 counts each of deception, as well as attempted deception.

Jurors found proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that they were the authors of appalling threats against their lives, their children and their co-workers sent between 2012 and 2014.

Some letters were sent with items of their children’s clothing stained with fake blood, while other threats were painted on the walls and windows of their home.

Because many of the threats related to their work, Lean and Peisley benefited from the public purse, with taxpayers forking out for:

ACCOMMODATION in luxury serviced apartments worth $106,191

PRIVATE hospital fees worth $57,997.06

WORKERS compensation payments worth $109,440

They also sought a $580,000 lump sum payment, but did not receive it before they were caught by a unique police sting.

Officers covertly broke into their flat and marked a stack of envelopes and paper with “invisible ink”.

The next threat the couple handed over to police was tested with a UV light to reveal the markings the officers had made.

The couple have maintained their innocence, with Peisley last month offering to take the fall and serve jail time if it would keep Lean out of prison.

media_camera Simon Craig Peisley will spend at least three-and-a-half years in jail. Picture: Greg Higgs

media_camera Tabitha Lean was sentenced to six years, eight months home detention. Picture: Greg Higgs

On Tuesday, Judge Beazley said the couple were entitled to deny any wrongdoing, but said he could offer them no sentencing discounts as a result.

He stressed the threats were baseless, and that the couple had no intention of carrying them out, but said that did not reduce their emotional impact upon the innocent recipients.

Judge Beazley said the couple had also damaged the Aboriginal community, the reputations of their co-workers and public feeling toward both groups.

He said the case was “sad” and “inexplicable”, thanks in part to the couple’s continued pleas of innocence.

“I again ask myself, rhetorically, what could you have hoped to achieve by doing this?” he said.

“True it is that a lump sum of $580,000 is an enormous sum of money and an incentive to deceive others but, even if you had received it, it would require you both to leave employment.

“It was no more than three years’ salary ... in effect, there was little or no financial gain of any substance.”

media_camera One of the handwritten fake threats by Tabitha Lean and Simon Peisley. Source: District Court.

He said he could only speculate that stress over departmental restructuring, as well as hurt feelings over having her Aboriginality questioned, had prompted Lean to act.

“All you managed to do was damage yourselves and the lives of other people ... this was not a silly frolic but a determined effort to deceive SA Health,” he said.

Lean did not comment as she left court.

Her three-year home detention sentence comes after Attorney-General John Rau late last year proposed a tightening of the controversial sentencing option.

Mr Rau moved to make home detention ineligible for people convicted of serious crimes and serving a non-parole period of longer than two years, following public outcry after a number of controversial cases highlighted by The Advertiser.