Habitual thief gets 5 years imprisonment [1]
Wednesday, March 10, 2021 - 19:12
Lafitani Mahe (32) is serving five-years and six-months imprisonment for serious housebreaking and theft of goods, including Tongan valuables valued at $34,000. He is also serving time for possession of 1.4 grams of methamphatamine.
Justice Langi sentenced Mahe on February 26, after he was found guilty in a trial at the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court.
A repeat offender, the accused broke into the complainant 'Ana Kama's home on February 19, 2019 at Houmakelikao, after she left for work. She returned home for lunch and discovered that some louvers from her windows had been removed. Stolen items included Tongan valuables of fine mats, tapa with electronics and cash valued at $34,000 pa'anga.
The accused was arrested after the complainant's son found one of their stolen items (speakers) being advertised for sale on facebook. A police fingerprint expert also analysed the prints left from the louvers and confirmed that it belonged to the accused.
None of the other properties were recovered apart from the speakers.
A few months after in July, the accused was again arrested and charged for posession of four small packets of methamphetamine, at a home in Pili. He admitted to the Police that the drugs were his. The drugs weighed 1.4 grams.
The judge said, the accused committed these offence while he was under a suspended sentence for another matter committed in 2018.
"His criminal record illustrates that he is a ;habitual property offender, who has now escalated to drug offending.
“The increase in his property offending is to feed his drug-related needs with convictions dating from 2009 to 2019.”
She said the only mitigating factor in this case was that it was his first drug offending. He was employed as a builder in the government project for building houses damaged by the cyclone.
"It is clear from the extensive list of previous convictions that the accused is a habitual property offender."
The judge said the accused gets more from stealing than the cost of having to do time.
In addition, to protect the community from such people, there is a need to increase the punishment as deterrence, she said.
The accused was sentenced to five-years with six-months added on from his previous suspended sentence.