Court dismisses appeal against two-year theft sentence citing appellant's poor record and need for societal protection.

[*761] 1971 May 11

(STAVRINIDES, L. LOIZOU, A. LOIZOU, JJ. )

APPELLATE JURISDICTION

Christos Panayiotou Frantzis,

Appellant,

v.

The Police,

Respondents.

(Criminal Appeal No. 3247).

Criminal Law - Sentence - Two years’ imprisonment for stealing - Sections 255 and 262 of the Criminal Code Cap. 154

- Sentence not excessive in view of appellant’s record and his failure to benefit from lenient treatment accorded to him in the past and the need to protect society.

Appellant in person.

A. Frangos, Senior Counsel of the Republic, for the Respondents.

JUDGMENT

The judgment of the Court was delivered by:-

STAVRINIDES, J.: This is an appeal against a sentence of two years' imprisonment passed on the appellant [*762] by a judge of the District Court of Limassol on March

31 last for stealing.

On the night of January 31 to February 1 the appellant shared a room in a lodging-house in Limassol with complainant and one other person. Before going to bed the complainant had put his jacket, containing a wallet with £9.500 mils in it, a wedding ring of the value of £4 and five Government lottery tickets worth 750 mils, on a chair by his bed. On getting up in the morning he noticed that the wallet, money, ring and tickets were all gone. He promptly reported the matter to the police, who later that morning found appellant at Zakaki village, where he was employed, searched him and found on him the wallet, ring, tickets and £9.260 mils, i.e.

240 mils less than had been in the wallet. He was taken to the Limassol Police Station, where he proceeded to make a statement admitting that the wallet and all the money found on him had been stolen by him earlier that morning from the complainant's jacket while the latter was asleep. He admitted that out of the stolen money he had spent 240 mils and said that his motive in committing the theft was that he was penniless, having lost his money the previous night at gambling.

Conducting the appeal on his own, he pleaded for leniency on the ground that in October last he became engaged to be married. When asked if the engagement had been celebrated as a betrothal he said it had not, there had only been an exchange of promises. Quite apart from the fact that we have only his word for this alleged engagement, it [*763] is to be noticed that the offence was committed subsequently, and assuming he had been engaged, as alleged, the appellant cannot very well shield himself behind that event.

The judge had before him the appellant’s record, showing that in 1963 he had been put on probation for two years for stealing, that less than five months later in the same year he was put on probation for three years for another case of stealing, and that in December, 1969, he was sentenced to imprisonment for four months for another theft. In the circumstances it is not surprising that the learned trial judge took the view that the appellant, having squandered two chances in 1963 and been convicted of theft twice thereafter, deserved no further leniency and that a sentence of two years' imprisonment was appropriate as a means of protecting society.

We find nothing wrong with that view and we dismiss the appeal on the terms that the sentence shall run from the date of conviction.

Appeal dismissed.