With fourteen previous convictions for fraud-related offences, Begum Samuels Farina gained work as an accounts clerk for Horizon Radiology under a false name and then proceeded to steal from her new employer. The High Court confirmed her sentence of ten months home detention and an order for $21,000 reparations.
The High Court was told Farina started work with Horizon’s Auckland Parnell office in September 2016. She had authority to access Horizon’s online banking and to action client refunds. Within six months she had on some twenty separate occasions diverted client refunds into her personal bank account. Further refund money continued to pass into Farina’s bank account after she resigned because her bank details had not been purged from Horizon’s client bank account database. The trial judge described her as a ‘fundamentally … dishonest person.’
Farina appealed her sentence, claiming it was excessive given the amount stolen. Justice Toogood confirmed the period of home detention and order for reparations, for what he described as a premeditated theft by calculated means committed by a person in a position of trust. One hundred hours community service included by the trial judge as part of Farina’s original sentence was quashed. Community service is not commonly imposed in conjunction with sentence for a long period of home detention, Justice Toogood said.
Farina v. R. – High Court (15.04.21)
21.070