DPP v Ngkupumu

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Birmingham
• Judgment Date: 10 December 2014
• Neutral Citation: [2014] IECA 33
• Date: 10 December 2014
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)
• Docket Number: 259/13

[2014] IECA 33

THE COURT OF APPEAL

Birmingham J.

Sheehan J.

Mahon J.

259/13

DPP v Ngkupumu

The People at the Suit of the Director of Public Prosecutions

Respondent

V

Dadibaku Ngkupumu

Appellant

Criminal law - Appeal against severity of sentence-Imprisonment - Five year sentence - Seventeen counts on indictment - Offences involving the use of a computer, the use of a false instrument and false accounting - Defrauding employer of large sums of money - Whether error of principle

Facts The appellant is of an IT background. He is a former employee of Avery Dennison. His role was to deal with rejected payments i.e. responding to situations where there was an error as a result of incorrect account details being furnished etc. Members of the team were, by use of personal issue cards and pin numbers, able to make alterations. Alterations as to payment destinations, account details and so on. In simple terms, the appellant used his pin number and his authorisation to alter mandates so as to cause loss to his employer. The total loss to Avery Dennison was €336,814.27. Two employees were required to authorise the making of an alteration. However, the appellant had the details of a former employee. His activities came to light when one of Avery Dennison"s clients informed the company that they had not received payment on foot of an invoice that was due to them, while the Avery Dennison records were showing that the client in question had in fact been paid and this provoked an audit which disclosed the irregularities that the appellant had been engaged in. In essence he was dealing with rejected payments and routing them to illegitimate accounts in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. He is originally from Democratic Republic of Congo but has acquired status in Ireland as a parent of an Irish born child. He has three children. He has separated from his wife but is currently in a new relationship.

Held The judge identified numerous aggravating factors: the use of details of a colleague, the fact that the offences occurred over a period of time, the fact that there were overseas accounts involved (indicative of premeditation), and the breach of trust involved - defrauding his employer of a very substantial sum of money, money which had not been recovered. Mitigating factors included: the fact that in the later interviews that were conducted with the appellant following his arrest that he was forthcoming and that he answered questions, the fact that a plea was entered at an early stage and it was recognised and specifically commented upon, that it was a plea that was of value because it prevented the need for a complex trial and of course the fact that there were no previous convictions. The judge had to decide whether there had been an error of principle, whether the sentence was impermissible and whether there was a departure from the norm in terms of sentencing concerning offences of the same nature.

- The judge in the Circuit Court approached the task of sentencing with considerable care. In the circumstances, the judge rejected any error of principle. The sentencing judge was entitled to approach sentencing in the way he did and the sentence imposed was one that was entirely open to him.

-Appeal dismissed

1 1. In this case the appellant appeals against the severity of a sentence of five years imprisonment that was imposed upon him in the Circuit Court on the 26 ^th November, 2013. The sentence has been backdated to a date in May 2013. The sentences were imposed in respect of seventeen counts on indictment and the sentences were all to run concurrently.

2 2....