Cousins used this access to perpetrate a sophisticated fraud, creating fictitious employees and utilising the names of existing casual employees to obtain funds.
Mr Cousins pleaded guilty to 10 counts. 8 counts related to the appropriation of money from the Catholic Education Office and 2 counts related to his unauthorised modification of data within the payroll system, being the mechanism through which the appropriation of money took place. The total amount appropriated over a period of 8 years was just over $1.19 million. The conduct of Mr Cousins, who was the Senior Payroll officer represented a sophisticated fraud and was a breach of trust. In sentencing Cousins, Higgins CJ observed:
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It need not be thought that this is a victimless crime save in the sense that there is no particular person who is a victim, but it has defrauded the Catholic Education System, teachers, parents, the church itself and governments of a considerable sum of money over the period of time. |
His Honour sentenced Mr Cousins to 6 ½ years imprisonment reduced from 8 years on account of his plea of guilty and other subjective factors. A non parole period of 4 years was set, with the first 2 years to be served by way of full time imprisonment and second 2 years to be served by way of periodic detention.
Action was also taken against Cousins under the Confiscation of Criminal Assets Act 2003.
R v FORTALEZA
On 16 August 2011, Kim-Rae Fortaleza was sentenced for seven counts of engaging in sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years (“MEG”) and one count of sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years (“DC”), to which he had pleaded guilty. The offender, who had been 20 years old at the time of the offences, had befriended MEG aged 13 and DC aged 14 and engaged in sexual activity with them. In sentencing the offender, Justice Refshauge adopted the principle expressed in previous cases that the legislation creating these offences is directed at the protection of children regardless of their own burgeoning sexual feeling.
Fortaleza was sentenced to a total period of six years and six months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years.
On 8 February 2012, Fortaleza was further sentenced, following a plea of guilty, on one count of sexual intercourse with a person under 16 (a third victim). This offence had been committed while Fortaleza was on bail for the offences referred to above. Her Honour Justice Penfold found that on the face of it, the offender should have been aware by the time he committed this offence that sex with under-age girls was illegal and a dangerous activity, but found there was no basis to find that he committed the offence in deliberate disregard of how the law expected him to behave.
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ANNUAL REPORT 2011-12 DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS 31
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