Police v Sosaiete [2013] WSSC 94 (8 July 2013)

SUPREME COURT OF SAMOA

Police v Sosaiete [2013] WSSC 94

Case name: Police v Sosaiete

Citation: [2013] WSSC 94

Decision date: 08 July 2013
Parties:
POLICE vMANUSINA SOSAIETE, female of Alamagoto and Asau Savaii

Hearing date(s):

File number(s):

Jurisdiction: Criminal

Place of delivery: Mulinuu

Judge(s): Justice Nelson

On appeal from:

Order:
Representation:
R Titi and O Tagaloa for prosecution
T Leavai for defendant

Catchwords:

Words and phrases:

Legislation cited:
Cases cited:
Police v Valaauina [2009] WSSC 21
Police v Amani [2008] WSSC 26

Summary of decision:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF SAMOA
HELD AT MULINUU

BETWEEN:

THE POLICE

Prosecution

AND:

MANUSINA SOSAIETE, female of Alamagoto and Asau Savaii.

Defendant

Counsel: R Titi and O Tagaloa for prosecution

T Leavai for defendant

Sentence: 08 July 2013

SENTENCE

The police summary of facts which the defendant through her lawyer has admitted says the following; the defendant is a 32 year old female of Alamagoto and Asau, married with two children, living at her husbands family. She has worked for much of her adult life to support her family.

At the time of this offending she was employed as a senior resource executive with Digicel Limited one of the local telecommunications companies. Her duties included organising events for the company such as farewells, workshops, promotions etc. On 28 January last year the company hosted a farewell dinner for an employee at the Amanaki Hotel down the road. It was a last minute event and there was accordingly no time to raise a cheque to cover the dinner expenses as was the normal procedure. An amount of $2,000 in cash was given to the defendant to pay for the dinner. The company was charged $1,961.00 for the dinner. A bill which the defendant did not pay. But put into her own pocket. The $39.00 tala change from the $2,000.00 cash she gave to her senior officer. Thus making it appear like the Amanaki bill had been paid.

On 24 February last year a cheque for $5,000.00 was given to the defendant by the company to buy kitchen utensils and supplies. The cheque was cashed by the defendant who kept the money for her own personal purposes. These thefts came to light when Digicel received an invoice from Amanaki for the unpaid dinner bill from January 2012.

This prompted an internal investigation into all payments entrusted to the defendant. The investigation revealed these two incidents of theft. The matter was referred by the company to the police who after investigation charged the defendant with two counts of theft as a servant arising out of these two financial misappropriations.

Originally the defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges against her but when the charges were finalised her plea was changed to guilty. She appears for sentence this afternoon on these two charges.

This is not the defendants first court appearance for theft as a servant. In 2006 she was spared imprisonment and sentenced by this court for theft as a servant. She received instead a sentence of probation and community service. In sentencing her Chief Justice Sapolu said the following to her.

“The accused must bear in mind that if she reoffends and appears in court again it would be unlikely that she would be given the same opportunity again”.

It is clear from her re-offending that the defendant learnt nothing of value from that previous experience. And the summary of facts indicates that this was deliberate and planned offending. Other aggravating factors as outlined by prosecution in their sentencing memorandum include the following; a great deal of trust was enlisted in her given the unsupervised control of large amounts of company monies in her possession; monies which she subverted to her own personal use; monies which totals almost $7,000 which is a significant sum; monies which were stolen not on one occasion but on two separate occasions.

On the file before me is a victim impact report dated the 19th of June of this year signed by the head of finance for Digicel. It says that contrary to what the defendant told the probation office she did not apologise or make restitution to her employer. Other than her guilty plea the only factor in the defendants favour is that she is currently pregnant and is due in the month of October. Her counsel has submitted that imprisoning her now would probably mean she will have to give birth in prison. And counsel has strongly argued that her condition should save her from a prison term. And has submitted a suspended sentence and community service should be imposed.

I cannot agree. In the often cited case of Police v Valaauina [2009] WSSC 21 the defendant too was a pregnant woman. She was not the first expected mother to receive a prison term. There have been many others in this country. See for example Police v Amani [2008] WSSC 26. In all those cases it is noted that the prison has facilities for the care and support of pregnant mothers. And there is no evidence before the court that the health of either the mother or the baby would be endangered by the defendant birthing while serving a sentence. Indeed given that this is Samoa the baby would probably receive good care surrounded by so many women caregivers.

Your condition cannot spare you from the penalty that must be imposed on you who are a repeat offender. An appropriate start point considering all the circumstances of your case is 18 months in prison. I will deduct from that 6 months because of your guilty plea which has saved the courts time and limited resources. That leaves a balance of 12 months. But that requires by law to be upgraded to account for your previous conviction which is an aggravating factor. The minimum time I can give to this upgrade is at least a period of 4 months which I do so because you are a repeat offender Manusina. Makes a total of 16 months in prison.

On both these charges you will be convicted and sentenced to 16 months in prison.

.........................

JUSTICE NELSON