Sakala v People (Appeal 9 of 1987) [1987] ZMSC 62 (7 October 1987)

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF ZAMBIA Appeal No.9 of 1987 HOLDEN AT LUSAKA (Criminal Jurisdiction) GEORGE MIKAYA SAKALA Appellant - v - THE PEOPLE Respondent CORAM: Ngulube, D. C. J., Gardner and Sakala, JJ. S. D. M. Luywa, Messrs Mwisiya & Company, for the appellant K. C., Chanda, Senior State Advocate, for the respondent 7th October, 1987 JUDGMENT Ngulube, D. C. J., delivered the judgment of the court The appellant pleaded guilty to six counts of theft by servant. The particulars of the various counts showed that while the appellant was employed as a factory manager with the Eastern Co-Operative Union at Chipata, on various days between 29th September 1984 and almost monthly until 31st July, 1985, he stole various sums of money. As we said, he pleaded guilty and he also asked for eight other thefts from his employers to be taken into account. The amount stolen came to around K200.000 most of which we understand has been paid back. In imposing an effective sentence of nine years imprisonment with hard labour, the learned trial magistrate indicated that he would look at the thefts as a course of conduct and punish the appellant as for one offence. Accordingly a sentence of one and half years imprison­ ment was imposed on each count to run consecutively making a total of nine years. The appellant now appeals to this court against the severity of that sentence. We have considered the able submissions which Mr. Luywa, counsel for the appellant has made and his plea that consideration 2/......... be J2 be given to the sentences being made concurrent. We agree with Mr. Luywa that since the appellant was a first offender and since it was clearly the intention of the trial court to extend leniency, the effective sentence of nine years does not reflect the credit which should have been given to the appellant for his plea of guilty in what might otherwise have turned out to be a fairly complicated trial. However, we do not agree that a person who has stolen so much money in such a systematic fashion should be sentenced to one and half years only as proposed by Mr. Luywa. We allow the appeal against sentence and set aside the effective sentence of nine years. In order to reflect what we have been saying, we substitute a sentence of five years Imprisonment with hard labour on each count, but all these sentences will run concurrently, making a total of five years imprisonment with hard labour with effect from the same date selected by the magistrate. M. S. Ngulube DEPUTY CHIEF JUSTICE B. T. Gardner SUPREME COURT JUDGE E. L. Sakaia SUPREME COURT JUDGE