Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2004]JRC140

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

 

13^th August 2004

 

The Attorney General

-v-

Carolyn Elizabeth Gray

 

 

1 count of:	Fraud. (Count 1).
1 count of:	Falsification of accounts. (Count 2).

 

 

Age:     43.

 

Plea:    Guilty.

 

Details of Offence:

Count 1 - Employee of estate agents William A Bull & Company.  Made false representations that rent for her house to the total value of £20,689.34, has been paid to her employer, when it had not.

Count 2 - Falsified the books of her employer to show that rent to the total value of £20,419.32 had been paid, when it had not.

The total sum for which the accused benefited was £20,689.34.

Position of great trust.  Offences took place over 2 years.  Honorary Police Officer.  Employee of victim company 23 years.

 

Details of Mitigation:

Previous good character; guilty plea; remorse; repaid stolen monies in full; co-operation with police; has a partly disabled partner to care for; two daughters aged 17 and 12 years old.

 

Conclusions:

 

Count 1:	15 months' imprisonment.  (Starting point: 27 months).
Count 2:	15 months' imprisonment; concurrent.  (Starting point: 27 months).

 

 

Sentence and Observations of Court:

 

Count 1:	15 months' imprisonment.
Count 2:	15 months' imprisonment ; concurrent

 

Suspended for 2 years. 

Sentences Crown moved for were right, suspended as act of mercy.

 

 

T.J. Le Cocq, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate R.S. Tremoceiro for the Defendant.

 

 

 

JUDGMENT

 

 

 

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        Ms Gray, over a period of some 2 years you defrauded your employer of approximately £20,000.  The clear consequence of such conduct is that a custodial sentence must follow unless there are exceptional circumstances.

2.        Your counsel has put forward a strong case to say that there are exceptional circumstances in this case.  The strongest point he makes relates to the circumstances in which you started committing these offences.  Until 1997 all appears to have been well in the family, but in 1997 your family was involved in a serious road accident, in particular serious injuries were caused to your husband.  He was physically injured, unable to work, he was also psychologically affected and clearly suffered from depression.

3.        You were already suffering from depression yourself following your mother's death.  The upshot was that this accident had a dramatic effect on the family.  The income fell and the savings gradually ran out.  Despite this, in 1999, you joined the honorary police because you wished to give something to the community.  It would seem that you reached breaking point at the beginning of 2000 and you started at that stage to take money from your employer in the sense that you did not pay in rent which was due.

4.        We are satisfied that at the time you had reasonable grounds for genuinely believing that you would be able to repay the money.  You were involved in suing and discussing with the insurance company substantial compensation for the claim.  It was clearly going to be paid at some stage and it never occurred to you, it would seem, that it would take some three and half years to be resolved.

5.        Nevertheless, you knew that a substantial sum in compensation would be forthcoming which would enable you to repay what were then fairly modest sums of money.  Further trauma took place after that and these are the circumstances described in paragraph 10 of the background report which are very private and we do not intend to mention them in public; but they were clearly extremely traumatic for the family.

6.        In February 2002, your husband's father died, his depression got worse and we would add that we have read the letter from your husband.  It is a powerful document.  It accepts full responsibility on his part for the fact that he let his injuries and his depression get to him and, as he put it rather graphically, "that you were let down by your husband in your time of need and you deeply regret your actions". 

7.        We are not seeking to blame your husband in any way, but it is quite clear - and he accepts it - that at this stage you were left to shoulder everything, as regard the family, on your own because of the traumatic effect which the accident had had on your husband.

8.        It is true, as the Crown has said, that in fact the financial position improved and money began to come in and at that stage you could probably have repaid the amount taken but we accept that you could not bring yourself to tell your husband what had happened in order to obtain the necessary money.

9.        So, those were the circumstances in which the offence occurred and they are, in this Court's experience, a fairly unique set of circumstances.  There is other strong mitigation.  Your guilty plea, your co-operation, your remorse - which we are quite satisfied is genuine as is shown by the Social Enquiry Report - and the delay (there has been it seems to us, rather more delay than there should have been in this case which appears to be very straight-forward).

10.      The money has been repaid in full.  You did this out of the insurance proceeds which you have now received.  We have read the references and these show that you are a person of outstanding character and, of course, this is confirmed by the fact that you gave service to your community as an honorary police officer.  Having said that, this was particularly serious conduct by an honorary police officer and brings shame on you and is damaging to the reputation of the honorary police.

11.      There is a low risk of re-offending.  You have a young family to look after and the Social Enquiry Report makes a strong recommendation that custody would not be appropriate.  We have had to weigh all this in the balance.  I have listed the powerful mitigation; against that there is a strong public interest that people who take sums of money of this amount over this period should go to prison. 

12.      We have to say we think there is no alternative to a prison sentence, but we are prepared in these exceptional circumstances to suspend it.  Accordingly the sentence of the Court is that the conclusions of the Crown in terms of length are right.  We, therefore, sentence you to 15 months' imprisonment concurrent on each count but in view of the exceptional circumstances we suspend it.  You are very fortunate. 

Authorities

Whelan: Aspects of Sentencing in the Superior Courts of Jersey (2^nd Ed'n): pp. 142-151; 183-190; 222-3.

Kirkland -v- A.G. (24^th September 2001) Jersey Unreported; [2001/200].

A.G. -v- Ryall (14^th October 1994) Jersey Unreported; [1994/212].

Ryall -v- A.G. (1^st May, 1995) Jersey Unreported; [1995/81].

A.G. -v- Cooper (6^th February, 1998) Jersey Unreported; [1998/24].

A.G. -v- Sproule (10^th January, 1992) Jersey Unreported; [1992/4].

A.G. -v- Young (31^st July, 1998) Jersey Unreported; [1998/164].

A.G. -v- Murphy (14^th April, 2000) Jersey Unreported; [2000/68].

R. -v- Clark [1998] 2 Cr. App. R(S).

Dean Thomas [1995] 16 Cr. App. R(S) 539.

A.G. -v- Donnelly & Ors (18^th May, 2001) Jersey Unreported; [2001/110].

Delaney -v- A.G. (28^th September, 1993) Jersey Unreported; [1993/123].

A.G. -v- Hamilton & Ors (3^rd June, 1999) Jersey Unreported; [1999/97].

A.G. -v- Gladwin (11^th June, 1999) Jersey Unreported; [1999/104].

A.G. -v- Kernan (28^th September, 2000) Jersey Unreported; [2000/191].