'Epuefi Laimani (37) who was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment for possession of illicit drugs, including 5.15 grams of methamphetamine, while offering cash as bribes to a police officer, was successful in his appeal and got his sentenced reduced to three-years.

The Appeal Court last week quashed Hon. Mr Justice Cooper’s sentence at the Supreme Court.

On 6 April 2021, following trial, the judge found the appellant guilty of four counts of possession 5.15 grams of methamphetamine, 3.59 grams of cannabis, offering a bribe to police in the sum of $50 and a further count of offering a bribe to police in the sum of $3,000.

On 3 May 2021, the judge sentenced him to a total of five and a half-years imprisonment, with the last six months suspended on conditions.

The appellant applied for leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence on 18 May 2021. He was only granted leave to appeal against his sentence by Lord Chief Justice Whitten in July of the same year.

Drugs and bribery

The court heard that on 10 October 2018, plain-clothed police were travelling in an unmarked car along Vuna Road when they saw the appellant, whom the lead officer knew from previous drugs operations sitting in his vehicle. 

The appellant ducked down out of sight in a suspicious manner. When the officer approached and spoke to him, the appellant tried to hand a $50 note to the officer who refused it. 

He then reached into a compartment of his vehicle and pulled out a number of $100 and $50 notes and offered them to the officer, and the officer again refused them. 

The appellant then took a small tin from his trouser pocket and threw it onto the floor of the vehicle. He was then removed from the car. The tin was inspected and was found to contain several small packets of what was later tested to be methamphetamine and cannabis. 

He claimed that they "belonged to a group of friends who had used the car the night before". En route to the police station, he asked two officers to stop at an ATM so that he could give them $3,000 each, which they refused, said the Court.

No opposition from Crown

The Crown filed a notice of no opposition to the appeal.

"Before us, Mr 'Aho for the Crown candidly explained that the sentence here was excessive due to the Crown not bringing the timing and relationship of the appellant's sentence in CR 59/19 to the attention of Cooper."

The counsel also submitted that had the judge been made aware, he would have taken those matters into consideration and imposed a lower sentence for the instant offending.

The Court said the judge was entitled to view the amount of the methamphetamine combined with the other drug related paraphernalia found in the appellant's vehicle as evidence of possession for the purpose of supply. As such reason of that circumstance of aggravation was warranted. 

That does not mean the appellant was being sentenced for the discrete offence of supply. Had he been, the resulting sentence would likely have been even more severe.

"However, having regard to the comparable sentences referred to above, we are persuaded that the total sentence for the methamphetamine was slightly excessive."

The Appeal Court considered an appropriate sentence to be four-years imprisonment, which we note is at the top end band for less than 5 grams.

"There is no challenge to the sentences for the possession of cannabis or the offers to bribe. We agree that it was appropriate to add one year from the bribery sentences to the head sentence for possession with the balance of the sentences to be served concurrently."

Their formulation produced a total sentence of five years imprisonment.

"In rectifying that omission, we take into account the unfortunate circumstances that have resulted in the appellant having been released from prison only to be returned almost a year later. We consider that the overall culpability for the two lots of offending and their temporal proximity requires that the aggregate of the two sentences of seven-years and nine-months imprisonment be reduced by two-years."

“Accordingly, the sentence for the index offending will be three-years imprisonment.”

The appeal was then allowed and the sentence of the Supreme Court quashed. 


In substitution, the appellant was sentenced to three-years imprisonment, effective from 3 May 2021.

On account of the appellant's relevantly and moderately good record prior to the 2020 offending, as far as the Court was aware of, we considered it appropriate to order the final-year of the sentence be suspended for two-years on conditions, said the Appeal Court.