R v Sigley - [2002] QCA 11

[2002] QCA 11

COURT OF APPEAL

McMURDO P
THOMAS JA
AMBROSE J

CA No 297 of 2001

THE QUEEN

BARBARA ANN SIGLEY Applicant

BRISBANE

..DATE 04/02/2002

JUDGMENT

THE PRESIDENT: The applicant pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in the District Court at Southport and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment suspended after six months with an operational period of three years.

The applicant claims the sentence was manifestly excessive and the learned Judge failed to place sufficient emphasis on the mitigating factors.

The applicant was an office manager for a masonry business which supplied bricks to subcontracted bricklayers. She was dismissed from her position after failing to attend work and a new office manager identified a number of suspicious book entries in the business accounts.

The offence occurred over a six month period from July 1998 to January 1999. The applicant used the company's on-line direct debit arrangements with the bank to obtain money for her own purposes and made false entries in the books of the business to disguise her dishonesty, which involved 12 separate transactions of amounts varying from $200 to $2,500.

On one occasion she paid a cash cheque to herself and falsely recorded the payee in the company's books. On another occasion she used the business Visa card to pay school fees of $2,500. On the other occasions, she transferred funds directly into her own bank account.

The total amount misappropriated was approximately $11,000. She has repaid $2,000, but $9,000 remains outstanding. Her dishonesty was simplistic and would in time inevitably be disclosed.

The applicant was 49 years old at sentence and has no prior convictions. She is divorced and resided with her two children, 13 and 15, and was their sole support. The applicant has had a lifetime of more than her share of hardship. She was married first at 17 and has an adult child of that marriage, which ended in divorce. The second marriage also ended in divorce.

In 1984 she commenced a de facto relationship with the father of her younger two children. In 1987 she discovered that he was a paedophile and had been interfering with her daughter's friend and her best friend's daughter. She ended the relationship. She has given evidence against him and he has been convicted.

In 1991, her brother was murdered and his stepson was charged with but not convicted of that offence. In 1993 she married again. That relationship too broke down, much to her deep disappointment.

Her daughter from her first marriage ran away from home at 13 and returned pregnant when she was 15. That daughter and the daughter's two children aged 11 and 5 live with her and her other children. The younger grandchild is most severely disabled and she assists her elder daughter, who is studying nursing at the Gold Coast Campus at Griffith University, in the child's care.

Although she has worked since completing her schooling primarily in office work, accounting and bookkeeping, she is now predominantly a homemaker…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading R v Sigley

Details

AGLC: R v Sigley [2002] QCA 11
Case: [2002] QCA 11
Decision Date: 4 February 2002

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the Court of Appeal, McMurdo P, Thomas JA and Ambrose J heard the case of The Queen versus Barbara Ann Sigley. The applicant had pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in the District Court at Southport and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, suspended after six months, with an operational period of three years. The applicant claimed the sentence was manifestly excessive and the learned Judge failed to place sufficient emphasis on the mitigating factors.

The legal issues the Court was required to decide included whether the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive and whether the learned sentencing Judge had given insufficient weight to the mitigating factors. The Court found that the sentence imposed was not manifestly excessive but that it was able to exercise its discretion afresh because of the error made.

The Court held that on the facts of this case, a sound exercise of the sentencing discretion would have been a sentence of either two years' imprisonment fully suspended or suspended after a short term of imprisonment, up to six months. The sentence imposed was therefore not manifestly excessive but this Court, because of the error made, is able to exercise its discretion afresh. The Court held that the appropriate sentence was to order that the sentence of imprisonment be suspended forthwith. The Court granted the application, allowed the appeal, and instead of suspending the sentence after six months, suspended the sentence as from 4 February 2002. The Court confirmed the sentence imposed at first instance in all other respects.

Orders