Prisoner says pregnancy ‘high risk’

A 33-year-old woman sent to prison for stealing $705,000 has lodged an appeal, arguing complications with her pregnancy could make her sentence more severe than usual.

Virginia Rose James, who is 23 weeks pregnant, was jailed for two years and nine months in March after she stole the money from the Taranaki-based energy infrastructure company Powerco, where she worked.

But during a High Court appeal in Wellington yesterday her lawyer, Jo Woodcock, argued Judge Chris Sygrove had not given enough weight to the mitigating factors in the case when he gave her a 13-month discount from the sentence starting point.

Speaking via audio-visual link from the New Plymouth courthouse, she said those included James’ willingness to take part in restorative justice and her cooperation with the investigation.

The potentially life-threatening nature of the pregnancy also meant a prison sentence would be harder on the mother-of-three than someone with a normal pregnancy or someone who wasn’t pregnant.

Medical reports from her GP and obstetrician categorised it as a ‘‘high risk’’ pregnancy and outlined she needed to be within half an hour of a surgical team because of the risk of medical complications when she went into labour.

Woodcock said corrections could not adequately care for James if problems arose during the pregnancy and birth of her child while she was in prison.

She also raised the issue of James’ transportation from Arohata Women’s Prison in Wellington up to New Plymouth on Monday when she said James was woken up at 4.55am and told she was being transported at the request of the judge.

James had tried to explain to the prison officers that she didn’t need to be transported and asked for a phone call to speak to Woodcock, but her request was denied.

Instead, she was handcuffed and placed in one of the prison vans for the drive to Whanganui prison. After further discussion with the prison guards, she was placed in a car for the remainder of the trip to New Plymouth.

Woodcock said while James arrived around 12.30pm, she wasn’t told about her arrival until around 3pm.

When Woodcock asked the court whether the judge had asked for her to be present, she was told Justice Robert Dobson had not.

She said the incident highlighted Corrections was not able to look after James to the level she needed.

Crown prosecutor Rebecca Thomson said she was unaware of the incident until she arrived at court on Tuesday and didn’t know the details of it.

However, she said Corrections already cared for a number of inmates with complex medical needs and had an obligation to look after people while they were incarcerated.

Dobson reserved his decision, but said he hoped he would be able to release it by tomorrow so James would not have to travel back to Wellington if she was granted home detention.