Increase sentence for fraud, police say

Police want the sentence increased for a woman who stole $327,000 from clients of her employer, a judge has been told.

It was hard to escape the conclusion the sentence was engineered to reach the level where home detention was an option for Rebecca Anne Ralph, instead of a jail sentence, said the police’s lawyer, Catherine Gisler.

But Ralph’s lawyer, Lucie Scott, said the sentencing judge was entitled to take a merciful approach.

In the High Court at Wellington yesterday, Justice Christine Grice reserved her decision on the police appeal against the sentence imposed on Ralph in Wellington District Court last December.

Ralph, of Waikanae, continues to serve her 12-month term of home detention.

Gisler said just $78 had been put towards the $20,000 reparation Ralph was ordered to pay. The district court had not set a payment schedule.

But Scott said that when the police appealed the sentence, Ralph’s probation officer told her payments towards reparation had to stop.

She also had to stop doing the 400 hours of community work she was ordered to complete. By that time she had completed 100 hours, Scott said.

Forty-five year-old Ralph had taken the money over a 10-year period that she worked at New Zealand Guardian Trust, targeting accounts that included those held by elderly and intellectually disabled clients.

Police said the her sentence was wrong in principle and manifestly inadequate.

It had been reduced too far because of the effect that a jail term would likely have on her son.

However, Scott said Ralph’s family circumstances were unique and the effect of jail would have been much more significant than in other cases.

The court should not change her sentence, given how much home detention and community work Ralph had already done.

Home detention was an alternative to jail, Scott said.