Rajina Subramaniam at a Paspaley party. Credit:Janie Barrett Invariably she walked out with something most could save for a lifetime and never afford. In the end Subramaniam's haul included 600 jewellery items, 200 Chanel products including perfume and make-up, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Michael Jackson memorabilia and vintage champagne. There was also $18 million worth of prestige properties in Bondi Beach, Kirribilli and the CBD. But the boxes of jewels were never opened. The apartments went unused. Rajina Subramaniam's crime - the largest case of fraud by a woman in Australia's history - was not driven by greed, but by a desire for human kindness, empowerment and revenge.

In sentencing her to a minimum of seven years' jail in the Downing Centre District Court yesterday, Judge Michael Finnane touched on the bizarre and ultimately tragic story of child abuse, sex and mental disintegration behind the crime. Outwardly, Subramaniam was leading a normal life with her husband in a modest house in Castle Hill. But court documents reveal that behind her polite and obsequious demeanour she was a deeply disturbed woman. Over the course of three sentencing hearings, the court was told that Subramaniam was sexually abused as a child by her grandfather and uncle. This left her with extremely low self-esteem and what the forensic psychiatrist Stephen Allnutt described as ''dependent and borderline personality traits'' - an overwhelming sense of disempowerment and a feeling that she had no control over her life. ''She presented to me as a person with a damaged personality that would be regarded in psychiatric terms as a personality disorder,'' he said.

Subramaniam's mental state left her vulnerable to the advances of other men, and some time after she began working at ING she began what became a long-term sexual relationship with a supervisor. This relationship included a series of three-way sexual encounters between Subramaniam, her husband and the supervisor at hotels and occasionally at the couple's home. Subramaniam is said to have been extremely uncomfortable about these encounters and felt that the relationship with her supervisor was an abusive one. ''A person having normal self-esteem might be expected to say to her husband and supervisor, no I won't engage in this conduct sorry … but she says she engaged in it because she didn't believe she had any option,'' Judge Finnane said. ''From an early age she was taught to be someone who had no self-esteem and it was borne out because the grandfather and uncle showed that was so, and they showed what men do … It's a tragedy. It's a terrible tragedy.''

This allegedly abusive relationship, along with Subramaniam's sense she was being mistreated by other staff at ING Holdings, led to resentment towards the company and, later, a powerful desire for revenge. ''By taking the money she … gets back at the system and others within the system'' Dr Allnutt said. The flip-side of this was a craving for nurturing and positive affirmation. Subramaniam presented herself as a rich and glamorous woman in order to attract the affection of the shop assistants and their managers and satisfy her need to be bathed in praise. So grateful was Subramaniam for the indulgent friendships of the staff she regularly lavished them with gifts of champagne, fountain pens and chocolate. She also gave one woman $1.3 million to buy property and another a gift of $240,000.

''When she went into these premises she was greeted with great warmth, not because they thought she was a good person but because large sums of money were being spent,'' the judge said. While yesterday's judgment has shed light on why Subramaniam committed the crime, questions remain over how she was able to get away with it for so long. Judge Finnane found Subramaniam abused her position as a trusted accountant to undertake the crime. But the method she used was not particularly sophisticated, relying on either the transfer of funds into accounts under her maiden name or directly into the accounts of the shops she wished to purchase from. ING only became aware of the scam when Paspaley Pearls rang up to check that it had authorised the payment of $2.5 million for a diamond auction. While an ING spokeswoman said the company was ''satisfied with its current security measures'', some have questioned the effectiveness of its internal auditing processes. Regardless, the company has taken a significant financial hit as a result of the crime.

Virtually all of the goods and property purchased have been recovered and resold, but sales data obtained by the Herald shows that, in the case of the apartments in Kirribilli and Bondi Beach, ING was forced to sell for much less than their former accountant paid. The biggest case of fraud by a woman in Australia's history may be finished in a legal sense but the financial ramifications will be felt for some time.