Disabled child’s mother spared from jail time

A FORMER bank teller who admitted that she stole N$87 000 from the accounts of clients of her employer in a futile attempt to find a cure for her severely disabled child was spared a prison sentence at the end of her trial in the Windhoek Regional Court on Friday.

Fraud is a serious offence and, unless exceptional circumstances are present, it is inevitable that even a first-time offender convicted of defrauding her employer would be sentenced to a direct term of imprisonment, Magistrate Sarel Jacobs remarked during the sentencing of former First National Bank of Namibia employee Seu Pulcheria Gowases.In Gowases’s case such exceptional circumstances were present, though, the magistrate found. She avoided being sent to jail as a result.Those exceptional circumstances were the fact that Gowases (30) has a ten-year-old son who is quadriplegic and entirely dependent on her for his daily care, and that her crimes were committed after she had been duped by a traditional healer who had claimed that he would be able to heal her son if she paid him large sums of money.Gowases pleaded guilty to 23 counts of fraud two months ago. She admitted that in the period from December 12 2007 to January 4 2008, while she was employed as a teller at the Okahandja branch of First National Bank, she made a total of 23 withdrawals from the accounts of three clients of the bank.She withdrew a total of N$87 000, and paid this money to a traditional healer who had told her that he would be able to heal her child, the court was told. By the time that she realised she had been swindled the money was gone.Magistrate Jacobs commented during the sentencing: ‘She as a mother committed these offences in the interest of her child and in a desperate attempt and a belief, which was created by an unscrupulous crook who abused her situation, that she will be able to give her disabled child a normal life.’Gowases was in a position of trust towards both her employer and the bank’s clients, and she abused this trust, the magistrate said. She also committed the offences over a period of time, during which she had ample opportunity to reconsider her actions, he said.However, taking into account the explanation she gave about the reason why she stole the money, the magistrate found that the circumstances of her case were different from the usual sort of fraud case.Gowases did not commit the fraud out of greed or to enrich herself, he commented.Magistrate Jacobs said he was satisfied that the community’s sense of justice would not require that Gowases should be sent to prison, and that imprisoning her would serve no purpose.He sentenced her to a four-year jail term, suspended in full for a period of four years on condition that Gowases repays the money to the bank in monthly instalments of N$1 500 and that she is not again convicted of fraud or theft committed during the period of suspension.Gowases was represented by defence lawyer Vetu Uanivi. Public Prosecutor Cliff Lutibezi represented the State.