Jail term for receiving equipment from college

Press, 21 November 1986, Page 4

Jail term for receiving equipment from college

The public was entitled to some relief from David Epiha Pihama’s criminal activities, which were ongoing said Judge Anderson in the District Court yesterday. He sentenced Pihama aged 34, unemployed, to nine months imprisonment on a charge of unlawfully receiving, from a person or persons unknown, a video player and colour monitor together valued at $4500, belonging to Lincoln College. Pihama had pleaded guilty to the offence which occurred on August 28, and was appearing for sentence yesterday. His counsel, Mr M. J. Knowles, in submissions before sentencing, had sought a term of periodic detention for the of-

The Judge said the equipment had been stolen from a lecture hall at Lincoln College.

On August 28, Pihama sold the equipment to a second-hand dealer for $550.

He had not co-operated with the police, who investigated the matter to try to find the person who stole the equipment. The Judge said the offence occurred while Pihama was on bail awaiting sentence on a burglary charge. It could not be argued that Pihama did not know of the consequences of what he was doing. His extensive list of offences included receiving stolen property, burglary and other dishones-

ty - The Judge said a com-munity-based sentence would be inappropriate or indequate. Pihama had been a regular offender and there did not seem to be any break in his continued excursions into crimes of dishonesty. Pihama had shown a lack of commitment to reform. He had not learned from a recent sentence of periodic detention. If Pihama had decided he was not going to be deterred or reformed by prison sentence, the public was entitled, at least for a period, for relief from his activities which were on-going, the Judge said.