Tertiary Student Who Stole Items Worth $1645 From Mates, Gets Suspended Jail Term

The Suva Magistrates Court on Thursday sentenced a 22-year-old man to 23 months imprisonment for stealing $1645 worth of items from his fellow hostel mates.

Fereti Navavia Ravai was sentenced by Magistrate Deepika Prakash, suspended years.

On August 18 this year, Ravai was a resident at a Samabula Hostel room number 172 and entered the room number 129 of the complainants while they were sleeping. He stole a mobile phone and later sold it in the city on that same night.

The Court heard that later that for three same night he returned to the same hostel room and stole the complainants’ laptops.

The matter was reported to the Police and Ravai was arrested. The items were recovered from the room of a friend of his. “You breached the trust of your fellow hostel mates by stealing from them when they were asleep in the comfort and privacy of their own room,” Magistrate Prakash said.

“Having stolen the phone, you were not satisfied and returned to steal the laptops. This Court considers these to be aggravating factors and increases your sentence by 12 months for each count which brings your sentence to 36 months,” he said.

In mitigation Ravai stated that he is unemployed.

The Court noted that Ravai was young and a first offender and that the laptops were recovered at the time of his arrest. Accordingly his sentence of 23 months was suspended for three years.