BY ROMINAH FAKA
A female former police officer has been sentenced to one year, 10 months imprisonment for defrauding her victim off $40,000 in 2019.
Pauline Pequa Sipi was found guilty following a trial, and was handed her sentence on Tuesday this week by principal magistrate Tearo Beneteti.
Court also made orders for the time spent in custody to be taken into account.
Ms Peqoa Sipi was also instructed to undergo spiritual counselling while in prison on the following topics – falsehood vs being truthful, freedom in Christ, live in content, peace and truth by God for his purposes – to be completed before she is released.
In delivering sentence, principal magistrate Beneteti highlighted the aggravating factors which include – breach of trust between Peqoa Sipi and the victim given the fact she was a police officer and the victim was an ordinary citizen; pre-planning as Peqoa Sipi planned to act with false pretence to defraud and obtain $40,000 from the victim; Peqoa Sipi’s failure to reimburse the victim’s money even though the victim gave her time to do that. Thus, victim suffered a big loss.
Mitigating factors include – Peqoa Sipi being a first-time offender, the sole bread winner for her family, cooperation with police and attending all her court hearings till the sentence date.
Court heard Peqoa Sipi at Henderson area on July 3, 2019, obtained $5,000 from the victim for a first payment for a single cabin, white Ute vehicle, registration number G2124 which she claimed to have won through the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force vehicle tender bidding process.
Again, on August 2, 2019 Peqoa Sipi took $20,000 from the victim for the second payment of the same vehicle.
On August 18, 2019 she obtained $2,500 from the victim to reimburse the money she borrowed from Mrs Sinita Amota for a part payment of the same vehicle.
Finally, Peqoa Sipi at Bank South Pacific, Heritage Park Branch, on November 6, 2019 obtained from the victim $12,500.
Peqoa Sipi in total took $40,000 from the victim.
Steward Tonowane of Office of Public Prosecution acted for the Crown and Allan Tinoni of Public Solicitor Office acted for Peqoa Sipi.
