R v Rhoden

[2002] QCA 415

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:	R v Rhoden [2002] QCA 415
PARTIES:	R v RHODEN, Linda (applicant)
FILE NO/S:	CA No 113 of 2002 DC No 6151 of 2001
DIVISION:	Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING:	Sentence Application
ORIGINATING COURT:	District Court at Gladstone
DELIVERED EXTEMPORE ON:	7 October 2002
DELIVERED AT:	Brisbane
HEARING DATE:	7 October 2002
JUDGES:	McPherson JA, Cullinane and Holmes JJ Separate reasons for judgment of each member of the Court, each concurring as to the order made
ORDER:	Application for leave to appeal against sentence refused
CATCHWORDS:	CRIMINAL LAW - PUNISHMENT - SENTENCE – PROBATION AND PAROLE - DISCRETION OF COURT – forgery – imprisonment for 3 years - no recommendation for parole - whether trial judge erred in exercise of discretion
COUNSEL:	M J Byrne QC for the appellant M J Copley for the respondent
SOLICITORS:	Ryan & Bosscher Lawyers for the appellant Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent

McPHERSON JA:  The applicant for leave to appeal against sentence was found guilty at trial in the District Court at Gladstone, of three counts of forgery with a circumstance of aggravation, and two counts of uttering.  She was sentenced to imprisonment for three years.

Three cheques were forged by altering the name of the payee to a name that resembled that of the applicant, and then paying them into her husband's bank account.  Two of those cheques were for sums totalling $30,000, which amount was not recovered.

The third forged cheque was for a total of $50,000, but the bank intercepted it before it was cashed or credited.  The victim of the fraud was the applicant's employer, which we were told, was a company incorporated in Alberta, for whom the applicant worked in some capacity in which she was responsible for preparing cheques for payment of the company's suppliers.

The amount of the loss has not been recovered, apart from the sum of $1,200, to which our attention was drawn, and it seems that the money was outlaid on general expenses and on expenses incurred in connection with some investment properties that the applicant and her husband owned.

She and he had several such properties and were involved in building a house, or another house, for themselves at the time.  Curiously and rather sadly, at the time of the offences, her husband had already left her as a result, we see from the record, of his having found someone else through the use of the internet.  The applicant was, at the time of the offences, a 35 year old woman, married with three children and no previous criminal record of any kind.

It is a little difficult to see a reason or motive for the commission of these offences after a history of honesty and hard work like hers; but she does not seem to have been in any particular financial need at the time, or at least not such financial need as to put pressure on her to commit these offences.

Emotionally, it must…