Panelbeating theft reparation paid
A family member has paid reparation of $4645 for a man who bought Friday beers with money stolen from his employer’s panelbeating business.
Clinton Rex Hayman, 32, stole thousands of dollars during the 18 months he was manager at Stratford Panel Beaters.
He later told police that he used some of the cash to buy Friday beers for staff.
Hayman, who no longer works for the firm, was sentenced in Ha¯wera District Court on Wednesday for the fraud, which began in February 2017 after he was promoted.
He had previously pleaded guilty to one charge of obtains by deception over $1000, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years jail.
Hayman’s lawyer, Neal Harding, said an amount of $4645.77 had been agreed as reparation.
A family member of Hayman’s would hand over a bank cheque to the court for the amount during their lunchbreak, if the court agreed.
Hayman was an employee of Ben Thomas Panel Beating, in Ha¯ wera, for about 14 years.
Owners Ben and Deb Thomas bought Stratford Stratford Panel Beaters in early 2017 and promoted Hayman to run it.
The police summary of facts detailed how Hayman had defrauded nearly $6000.
‘‘The defendant would on occasions create an invoice for the client, pocket a portion of the money, change the invoice and bank the remaining portion of the money to the company,’’ police prosecutor Sergeant Steve Hickey said.
‘‘The defendant would also get clients to pay ‘cash’ whilst getting store workers to carry out the repairs which, unknown to them, were ‘cash’ jobs.’’
On Wednesday, Judge Chris Sygrove said he would reduce Hayman’s community work sentence by 30 hours in recognition of the reparation payment.
He said a victim impact statement, written by Deb Thomas, spoke of the terrible disruption the theft had caused the business and the ‘many, many hours’ spent tracking down the fraud.
‘‘You didn’t make a particularly strong effort to apologise and make amends,’’ he said to Hayman.
‘‘Over the passage of time you stole that amount of money from your employer by taking cash that was supposed to be paid to them and you took it for greed, not need.’’
He sentenced Hayman to 150 hours community work and ordered the reparation payment be made by 5pm.
Ben Thomas said in October that his business had bounced back and was going really well.
Their other staff and their customers had been very supportive through the whole process.
‘‘We’ve been in business for 28 years and this is the first time we have ever dealt with this.’’