Prison sentence reduced by half

Press, 24 March 1977, Page 5

Prison sentence reduced by half

The proprietor of a con-, | valescent home, who stole i $45,000 from an elderly ’patient in her care, has had [her three-year prison sentence halved to 18 months on an appeal heard by Mr Justice Casey in the Supreme Court. Mr P. H. B. Hall appeared [for Mary Adelaide Margaret Buchanan, who was sentence to three years imprisonment bv Mr B. A. Palmer, S.M., in the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court on December 24. His Honour said that evidence had been given that Buchanan had obtained authority to run the patient’s Post Office savings account, which contained $52,000. When Buchanan was arrested the account was virtually empty. However, it was clear that Buchanan had suffered from' psychiatric and personality problems for several years, that, combined with an unfortunate marriage which ended in 1960, had been followed by an infatuation with a younger man, who was more sophisticated. He had suggested to her a way of taking advantage of her position of trust, his Honour said. Whatever her infatuation and motive was, Buchanan must have known what she was doing. She saw an easy way of making money, and took advantage of it to the fullest extent over a long period. "This can only be described as a despicable series of thefts from an elderly woman who was dependent on Buchanan, and whose trust and confidence Buchanan had won,” his Honour said.

He agreed with the sen- » tencing Magistrate that the ' punitive and deterrent as- ' pects of punishment had to 1 be taken into account. De- ■ terrence became a major t factor when a position of trust was violated. , However, his Honour said ' he noted that an earlier appeal by a Nelson woman I who had stolen $25,000 t through a series of defalca- - tions had resulted in her - three-year sentence being . reduced to 18 months. In that - case, full restitution had been i made. In Buchanan’s case, it was - unlikely that anything but a t proportion of the money 1 would be repaid, yet the > Nelson woman had none of , Buchanan’s problems or pre- . vious hardships. Under those 1 circumstances he had to find ’ that her sentence was excessive, his Honour said.