Jersey Unreported Judgments

 2002/22

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

25^th January, 2002

The Attorney General

-v-

Christopher James Marsh

Age:     27

Plea:    Guilty

Details of Offence:

Bank supervisor, then manager, diverted some £35,000 due to the Bank into his personal account there; this amount represented comparatively small transactions over the course of some 3 ½ years.  Offences came to light during routine check.

Details of Mitigation:

Became financially over-stretched with mortgage and other debt repayments; did not feel able to turn to his parents as both were seriously ill; guilty plea; co-operation; remorse; funds repaid by father whom accused would reimburse in due course; no customers were ever at risk of loss; remorse; impact on parents, wife and two infant children.

Previous Convictions:  

None.  

Conclusions:

18 months' on each count, concurrent.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted; breach of trust observations.

C.E. Whelan, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate A.J.D. Winchester for the Defendant

JUDGMENT

THE BAILIFF:

1.        This is a sad case, as indeed are most cases involving a breach of trust which come before the Court. 

2.        Whelan's Aspects of Sentencing in the Superior Courts of Jersey contains a passage at page 78 that we endorse.

"The cases seem invariably to involve offenders of excellent previous character, who co-operate fully with the police, who employ a not especially sophisticated modus operandi, who intend to make restoration (and sometimes do so wholly or in part), who plead guilty, who evince a more or less inadequate personality, either generally or in response to the configuration of problems which have led to the offence, who have lost employment, professional status and prospects as a result of the offence, who have suffered severe damage to family life,   suffered genuine remorse and, who as often as not, suffer in some particular personal way that makes a genuine emotional appeal.  Unsurprisingly, the Courts have felt unable to treat these circumstances as exceptional; they are, in the context of the cases, in fact commonplace."

3.        All these common characteristics of the offence and the offender are present to a greater or lesser extent in this case but at the end of the day the accused abused the trust placed in him by the bank and fraudulently converted to his own benefit some £35,000 over a period of 3 ½ years.   No doubt the offending would have continued had it not come to light.  

4.        The Crown Advocate has drawn our attention to the English case of R.-v- Barrick (1985) 7 Cr.App.R.(S) 142 where a number of relevant factors to be taken into account were listed.   We have considered each of those factors in the context of this case.  

5.        There is, as Counsel for Marsh has said, very substantial mitigation available to the accused.

6.        Marsh, by your actions you have brought disgrace upon yourself and great distress to your family.   That is probably a greater punishment than that which the Court is about to impose.   We have, however, in the public interest to make it clear to others in positions of trust throughout the community that if they break that trust and steal from their employers imprisonment will almost certainly follow.   We think that the Crown Advocate has correctly balanced the mitigating factors which your Counsel most ably has put before us.   The conclusions are granted and you are sentenced on each of the counts on the indictment to 18 months' imprisonment, making a total of 18 months' imprisonment.

Authorities

Whelan: Aspects of Sentencing in the Superior Courts of Jersey: pp.76-78.

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

A.G. -v- Congdon (16^th November, 2001) Jersey Unreported; [2001/231].

A.G. -v- Thomas (1^st August, 1997) Jersey Unreported.

R. -v- Barrick (1985) 7 Cr. App. R(s) 142.