The State v Clayton Tanner

• Jurisdiction: Papua New Guinea
• Citation: (2014) N5808
• Date: 31 October 2014
• Court: National Court
• Year: 2014

Full : CR 592 OF 2013; The State v Clayton Tanner and Alex Solon (2014) N5808

National Court: Salika, DCJ

Judgment Delivered: 31 October 2014

PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE—Criminal Law—Conviction on a charge of misappropriation—what is the appropriate sentence.

Cases cited:

Belawa v The State (1988-89) PNGLR 596

The State v Alois Kintau and Isaac Tom (2014) N5761

The State v Lawrence Pukali (2014) N5695

Doreen Liprin v The State (2001) PNGLR 6

The State v Zachery Pasliu (2014) N5696

SENTENCE

1. SALIKA DCJ: After a full trial I convicted the prisoners Clayton and Alex Solon with one count of misappropriation of K292,663.50, the property of Post PNG Ltd.

2. The trial started on 10 June 2014 and ended on 26 June 2014. The State called 7 witnesses and the two prisoners to gave evidence on t heir own behalf.

Circumstances of the Offence

3. The following are the circumstances of the offence and are the facts upon which they were arraigned:

4. The prisoner Clayton Tanner was employed by Post PNG as a technical manager for financial services within the financial services division. The prisoner Alex Solon was unemployed at t hat time and is a friend of Clayton Tanner.

5. Post PNG introduced a new product, mobile Salim Moni Kwik (SMK) Service in the year 2011. Through this program Post PNG uses the mobile money system known as Telepin and the accounting system Pronto. Both were intergrated such that once a cash in is done on Pronto it automatically is recorded in Telepin. When the money is cashed out, the cash out is recorded on the Telepin and then recorded also on Pronto before the cash is handed to the customer. Clayton Tanner knew the working of the system very well because he was one of those who installed it.

7. Between, the 01st of January 2012 and the 31st August 2012, the prisoners conspired with each other and fraudulently obtained from Post PNG an amount of K292,663.50. This they obtained using the mobile SMK (Salim Moni Kwik) system. Clayton Tanner manipulated the system by entering false cash entries on Telepin which is the mobile money system purporting to be monies sent from another province and then it was cashed out in Port Moresby. To anyone it would seem as if someone was sending some money from another part of the country to someone in Port Moresby, when in fact no names were sent. But the money was cashed out to whoever Clayton Tanner used. In this case he used Alex Solon to cash out once he sent messages to Alex Solon.

8. Between the 01st day of January 2012 and 31st of August 2012 Clayton Tanner and Alex Solon fraudulently obtained from Post PNG an amount of K292,663.50

9. Alex Solon was caught attempting to cash out when he was caught by Police and Post PNG Officials at the Boroko Post Office.

10. Reconciliation of cash ins and cashouts using the system showed huge variances in that the telepin figures and the pronto figures did not balance off. The cash in of the money were purportedly done by Post PNG customer service officers in other named centres but there were no real cash ins. The respective branch officers were investigated but there was no...