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http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/163-7-800-offender-ordered-pay-163-1/article-2074493-detail/article.html
UK : INK THEFT WOMAN ORDERED TO PAY 1 EURO
£7,800 offender ordered to pay £1
A MOTHER-OF-TWO who jumped bail in Derby six years ago, when
she was about to be sentenced for handling £13,000 worth of stolen
inkjet cartridges, has been ordered to pay back just £1.Derby Crown
Court heard how under the Proceeds of Crime Act Rachel Brayley should
pay back £7,800 – over half of the value of the cartridges – after the
hearing was told her that then partner, Thomas Geraghty, also benefited
from the crime.But since being released from Foston Hall prison, the
34-year-old had been claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance and had no
money.Judge John Burgess told Brayley: “I order you to pay a nominal sum
of £1 and the effect of that is should you come into money to the tune
of £7,800 you will have to pay that.” She handed herself over to police
in February after failing to turn up for her court case in 2004.Despite
a hunt, police did not know where she was until then.At her trial in
March, the court heard that she had got “cold feet” on the day she was
due to be sentenced.She left her home in Sinfin and went to Ireland to
bring up her two small children, aged eight and 10, who were being
looked after by their father’s family.A spokesman for the
Criminal Prosecution Service defended the court order to pay back the £1
and said it was the start of recovering the £7,800.He said: “The
benefit figure, or how much she made from her criminal activity, would
have been £7,800.”Then the court looks at realisable assets, which is
realistically how much she can pay back of that.”In this case it is
currently £1, but the order she has been served with means if in the
future she comes into money the police can apply for that money to be
paid back up to the value of £7,800.”He said he was unable to
provide details of the cost of bringing the case to court.
At the
original trial Judge David Pugsley sentenced Brayley, who now lives in
Birmingham, to six months in prison but she was released early. At the
time he said: “You’ve had courage to come back and you have children who
are older now, but still young.”There’s no indication that you have
committed any other offence.”The inkjet cartridges had gone missing from
RDS Systems Ltd, in Sinfin, where Brayley worked as a cleaner.Brayley
had denied stealing the cartridges but admitted that, along with
Geraghty, she had received a cheque for just over £8,000 for them.She
had also pleaded guilty to dishonestly receiving a laptop and a digital
camera.Speaking at the original trial Sherrall Pickford, prosecuting,
said: “She (Brayley) accepts that she bought them from a man in a pub,
knowing they were stolen.”Christopher Milligan, in mitigation for the
2003 offences, said: “Mr Geraghty was a heroin abuser. She was trying to
bring up two small children and all of the family income was being
spent by Mr Geraghty on drugs.”Those who were owed money were paid out
of the proceeds of this offence.”
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