The Queen v Jacob[1997] QCA 149

COURT OF APPEAL

DAVIES JA

McPHERSON JA

LEE J

CA No 46 of 1997

THE QUEEN

v.

RHONDA JUNE JACOB Applicant

BRISBANE

DATE 12/05/97

JUDGMENT

McPHERSON JA: This is an application for leave to appeal against a sentence of imprisonment for 12 months, suspended after 6 months during a period of 2 years, that was imposed in the District Court at Mount Isa for one count of stealing as a servant, to which the applicant pleaded guilty.

The applicant was employed by the Shire Council at Doomadgee for which she worked in the post office. Details of her employment are not critical to an understanding of the application and it is enough to say that she worked as the postmistress for some years, latterly in a self-employed capacity.

In 1997 an audit was carried out which disclosed a deficiency in a substantial sum in the funds received, or which ought to have been received, in the post office. The precise amount was not ascertainable but it was of the order of $20,000.

The applicant was, however, not responsible for loss of the whole of that sum. Another or possibly others were also involved. Her plea of guilty was accepted on the footing that she had abstracted something in the order of $8,000 and had done so possibly only during the preceding 12 months, when she had not been working under supervision as before, but as a self-employed person.

The applicant is 34 years of age.  She is a single mother with two children aged 13 and 5 years. She has no previous convictions. The sentencing Judge described her as an intelligent and resourceful person who had succumbed to alcohol and to the temptation presented by the money she was handling. Her mother had died when the applicant was only 11 and she was raised by her elder sister. She completed grades 11 and 12 at Ipswich Grammar School.

There was no prospect of restitution by her; but she did plead guilty at an early stage in what would probably have been a difficult case for the Crown to prove at trial.  It is, nevertheless, right to say that she occupied a position of trust and responsibility and that, in what she did, she let her own community down.

Taking account of some of the other sentences to which we have been referred, together with the amount involved, her prior good character and conduct and her early plea of guilty, the sentence impresses me overall as being somewhat heavy and such as justifies intervention by this Court on appeal. It may, in fact, be right to say that a sentence of imprisonment for 12 months, suspended after 6 months for a period of 2 years, is in substance or effect more onerous than a plain sentence of imprisonment for that period, that is to say one of 12 months.

In the result, I would grant the application, allow the appeal, and vary the sentence by setting aside the order for suspension and, in lieu, recommend that the applicant be considered for parole after three months from the date when she was sentenced, which was 14 February, 1997.

DAVIES JA: I agree

LEE J: I agree.

DAVIES JA: The orders are as indicated by Mr Justice McPherson.