Nath v The State [1993] FJHC 23; Haa0005j.1993s (8 March 1993)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF FIJI
APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 5 OF 1993

BETWEEN:

RAKESH NATH
- Appellant

AND

STATE
- Respondent

Appellant in Person
Mr. W. Foster for the Respondent

Date of Hearing: 8th March 1993
Date of Judgment: 8th March 1993

JUDGMENT

In the Magistrate's Court at Suva on the 27th of August 1992 the Appellant pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a video set valued at $1,200.00 from another person. He was one of three co-defendants charged with the offence and was sentenced to six months imprisonment consecutive to any sentence he was then serving. In passing sentence the Learned Magistrate stated that the Appellant had master-minded the theft and involved others. She also remarked that the Appellant had a long list of previous convictions.

The Appellant admitted all these previous convictions. They began in October 1982 and continued until 1989 according to the list submitted in the Magistrate's Court.

In his petition of appeal the Appellant stated that he was currently serving a period of 12 months imprisonment on another charge of larceny. He now appeals against the severity of the sentence he received on the current charge and claims in his submission on this appeal that he should have received a concurrent sentence for the present offence rather than a consecutive sentence. He also complains that the Learned Magistrate was wrong in holding that the Appellant had master-minded the theft. I have read the record of the court below and see nothing in it which would justify me holding that the Learned Magistrate was wrong in finding that it was the Appellant who master-minded the affair.

The Appellant is comparatively a young man although there is no evidence of his age before the Court. He is married with two children and is the sole breadwinner in his family. He asks that this Court give him a last chance to prove that he has reformed as a result of being in prison. If it were not for the Appellant's very bad criminal record which contains ten convictions for larceny and four convictions for breaking, entering, larceny and burglary together with another for sacrilege committed between 1982 and the present time I would be inclined to give the Appellant a concurrent sentence with that which he is presently serving but his record tells against my taking such a course.

Obviously this also weighed with the Learned Magistrate who remarked on the Appellant's previous convictions.

It may be that the Appellant has reformed as he states. If so I can only hope that he at last comes to realise that crime does not pay and in the interest of his wife and his family he should decide from now on to abandon his previous life-style of crime. In my judgment the Learned Magistrate would not have erred if she had imposed a higher sentence for the present offence and to that extent the Appellant should count himself fortunate.

The appeal must be dismissed.

JOHN E. BYRNE
J U D G E

HAA0005J.93S