Dishonestly obtain property from another by employee & forgery

Our client was charged after his employer’s discovered that he had been abusing his trusted position in their finance team. The allegations included:

1. that he had made payments directly to his personal accounts when doing the business banking;
2. adding overtime to his pay slips that had not been authorised; and
3. utilising the company’s frequent flyer points for his own personal use.

In total, it was alleged he had fraudulently applied over $80,000 for his own benefit and that he had used hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer points that he was not entitled to.

Our client admitted his conduct to his employer when the offending was discovered and to Police when he was interviewed.  He immediately made efforts to commence repaying the business for the money taken.

We requested that the matter be referred to adult restorative justice conferencing (“ARJC”) (previously known as justice mediation). This is a restorative justice process that allows the complainant (victim) and the defendant (our client) to participate in a mediation process where they can discuss how the offending has impacted them, the defendant can apologise and offer amends for their actions.

At the end of the mediation an agreement is reached. The details of the agreement are confidential but often include things like a written apology, repayment of the money taken (or compensation for any injury or damage caused), an agreement to undergo some form or rehabilitation (it might be counselling or a course), etc and most importantly, a clause that once all the conditions of the agreement have been met, the parties deem the matter resolved.

In this case a confidential agreement was reached between the parties and the ARJC team then notified the Prosecution that an agreement had been reached. The Police then get the necessary permissions to drop the charges.

Ultimately, the Prosecution offered no evidence in relation to all of the charges before the Court. The charges were dismissed against our client. As such, no penalty was imposed and our client has no record of this offending on his criminal history.

WARNING:

This is a summary of an actual case. Details have been omitted to protect the privacy of our client. We select cases which are informative and no guarantee is provided that similar results are achievable in all cases. Every case is different and you should obtain legal advice specific to your matter and circumstances.