Marannu v The Queen

[2011] VSCA 105

SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA

COURT OF APPEAL

S APCR 2010 0153

MEGANITA MARANNU	Appellant
	v
THE QUEEN	Respondent

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JUDGES	ASHLEY and WEINBERG JJA
WHERE HELD	MELBOURNE
DATE OF HEARING	14 April 2011
DATE OF JUDGMENT	14 April 2011
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION	[2011] VSCA 105
JUDGMENT APPEALED FROM	(Unreported, County Court of Victoria, Judge Wood, 7 May 2010)

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Criminal law – Sentence – Obtaining financial advantage by deception and attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception – Total effective sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment wholly suspended manifestly excessive – Circumstances of offending extraordinary – Youthful offender – No prior convictions – Prospects of rehabilitation excellent – Appeal allowed – Appellant re-sentenced.

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Appearances:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Appellant	Mr M Turner
For the Crown	Mr M Roper	Mr C Hyland, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions

ASHLEY JA:

1. The appellant, Meganita Marannu, a woman aged just 24, pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining financial advantage by deception and a charge of attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception.  The offences were committed in November 2008, when she was aged just 21.  On 7 May 2010, she was sentenced in the County Court to 30 months’ imprisonment on the first charge and 15 months’ imprisonment on the second.  With cumulation, the total effective sentence was 36 months’ imprisonment.  The judge wholly suspended the sentence for three years.  He stated that, had the appellant been convicted after trial, he would have imposed a total effective sentence of four years and six months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years and nine months. 

1. On 1 April this year, I granted the appellant leave to appeal on the ground that the sentence[1] was manifestly excessive taking into account the circumstance of the offence and the offender. 

   [1]She appears unrepresented, and I take her to be referring to the individual sentences and the order for cumulation.

Circumstances of the offending and the offender

1. It must be recognised that the home loan facility which the appellant actually obtained ($625,954) was quite large;  and the amount which she sought to obtain by her second loan application ($132,900), though much smaller, was not inconsequential.  Again, by her plea of guilty, notwithstanding the circumstances in which the applications were made, the appellant admitted dishonest intent.

1. But the circumstances in which the appellant falsely represented that particulars in an application which she made for the home loan facility were correct, and in which she attempted to obtain a second loan in reliance upon an application which was false in part, were quite extraordinary.  The appellant was prevailed upon by her husband, an older man whom she had married in May 2008, and who dominated her life, to buy his parents’ home, which was under threat of being lost because of mortgage default.  That is where the appellant and her husband, as well as his parents, were then living.  Money was needed.  She had no money.  Her husband  and an associate created false documents, which asserted that the appellant was…