Police v Sokime [2010] WSSC 171 (1 December 2010)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF SAMOA
HELD AT MULINUU

BETWEEN:

POLICE
Informant

AND:

MARIA SOKIME
female of Laulii and Vaimea.
Defendant

Counsel: R.Titi and P. Valoia for prosecution
S K Ainuu for defendant

Decision: 01 December 2010

SENTENCE

This defendant appears for sentence of 22 charges of theft as a servant and 22 charges of false accounting. She is a 25 year old single female formerly employed as a stock controller at one of the local wholesale companies.

Her primary duties included posting of invoices issued from each days deliveries on to the company computer system to account for the stocks sold on each given day. Once these invoices were posted the defendant would create an invoice summary and a corresponding stock sales product summary which detailed the particulars of each invoice and the stock sold. These summaries were then used to reconcile the stocks sold and the money received from each delivery.

According to the summary of facts the general practice was the defendant would collect such documents from each delivery sales person and post the invoice details onto the computer system. It is alleged that the defendant was not acting alone in this matter and that she had a co-defendant and that the defendant received from her co-defendant the invoices at the completion of each days deliveries. It is alleged that the defendant received the invoices from her co-defendant but she failed to hand over the full amount of money collected pursuant to those documents. And that together with her co-defendant she misappropriated monies by deliberately omitting invoice entries from the computer system and keeping the surplus cash thus generated. She did this on 22 separate occasions leading to the 22 charges the details of which are contained in the summary of facts which the defendant has through her counsel accepted. The amounts in each invoice range from the smallest of $21.76 to the largest of $1, 787.85.

Theft as a servant carries a maximum penalty at law of 7 years imprisonment and false accounting a maximum of 5 years. Theft as a servant is one of the most common offences in this community and as the court said in Police v Valaauina [2009] WSSC 21 the courts attitude to theft as a servant is well documented and should be well known to the public by now. Because of the seriousness and the prevalence of such offending usually a penalty of imprisonment is imposed. The reason for such penalty is not only to deter the offender himself or herself from such future behaviour but also others who may be tempted to follow his or her example. The only time that this is not done is if there are exceptional circumstances warranting some other form of punishment.

I have considered this case carefully and there is no reason for the court to depart from its usual sentencing policy. The fact that a defendant may be a first offender and previously was of good character is not a reason to depart from its normal policy. The defendants theft was systematic and well planned and involved falsifying company records in order to carry it out and in order to conceal it. The total amount involved is around $10, 000.00 which is a significant sum. As noted by the court in Police v Samu [2008] WSSC 2 charges of theft as a servant involving amounts around $10, 000.00 usually attract an imprisonment penalty of 18 months. I consider that an appropriate sentence given the fact that the defendant in this case is a first offender who has pleaded guilty and has saved the courts time and resources and avoided the trial.

The decision is therefore as follows: applying the totality principal on the 22 charges of theft as a servant the defendant will be convicted and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. On the 22 false accounting charges the defendant will be convicted and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment but these terms are to be served concurrently with the theft as a servant terms so that the defendant will serve a total of 18 months in prison.

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JUSTICE NELSON