Kalolaine Fainga’a (30) was sentenced to two-years imprisonment for serious housebreaking and theft of electronic goods valued at around $12,095 pa’anga.

Her co-accused Kisione To'aho (34) who was convicted of a lesser count of receiving stolen goods, received a suspended sentence. 

Lord Chief Justice Whitten QC sentenced them on 1 August at the Supreme Court in Nuku’alofa. This was after they changed their pleas to guilty on all counts, at the start of their trial on 23 June.

The court heard the offending was at around 9:00pm on 8 June, 2021 when the complainant, Tahirih Hokafonu returned home with her family from a funeral and noticed that one of the doors to their house was open.

The next day, she discovered that a MacBook Pro laptop, an iPad, a 2-terabyte external drive, a projector and accessories, a 32-gigabyte dual drive and other accessories were all missing. The total value was $12,095 pa’anga.

She lodged a complaint with the Police, and on 16 June 2021, the complainant managed to track her laptop via GPS and informed Police that its last known location was at a house in Tokomololo.

The Lord Chief Justice said, when Police attended that residence, they found Kisione's wife using the complainant's 
iPad. 

They then went to his computer repair shop on Fatafehi Road. He told the Police that Kalolaine had approached him, in need of money, and sold the items to him.

All the items were recovered and returned to the complainant. 

Kalolaine has previous convictions that included drug offences and imprisonment for housebreaking and theft imposed in 2021.

Meanwhile, Kisione told the probation officer that Kalolaine went to his house and offered to sell him the goods for $800. 

Kisione told Kalolaine that he only had $300, which she accepted. He told the probation officer that he regretted buying the goods and had 'learned his lesson' to never accept goods from someone he does not know.

Kisione's wife and the complainant are third cousins.

The Lord Chief Justice then sentenced Kalolaine to two-years imprisonment, with the final eight-months suspended for two-years, on conditions.

Receiving stolen property

Kisione who was convicted of receiving stolen property was sentenced to 16-months' imprisonment.

“He has expressed remorse. He also volunteered to the probation officer (not referred to in the Prosecution submissions) that he had a conviction for common assault in 2008 when he was at school. The officer opined that Kisione is unlikely to re-offend.

“The probation officer recommended a fully suspended sentence on conditions, including community work,” the judgement stated.

His sentence was fully suspended for two-years on conditions.

"Failure to comply with any of the above conditions may result in the suspension being rescinded and the defaulting defendant being required to serve the unserved portion of his/her prison term."