ANZ rich girls' appeal for bail rejected [1]
Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - 14:25. Updated on Thursday, May 1, 2014 - 22:52.
An application for bail by two former bank officers who were sentenced to prison terms for dishonesty, was rejected by Justice Ford at the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court, on November 24.
Justice Ford reported that under the Bail Act he is required to make an assessment of the merits of the appeals based upon the material that has been presented to him by the legal counsels of both parties.
He said that the applicants had failed to persuade him that there were reasonable prospects of their appeals succeeding and therefore their applications for bail were refused.
The two applicants were Siesi Hala'api'api Sefo, a former Manager of the Vava'u branch of the ANZ Bank, and Naioka Tisiola Tu'ipulotu, formerly the bank's Reconciliation Officer.
In October 2004 a jury heard how over a period of many months, a large amount of money had been misappropriated from the ANZ Bank, including about $170,000 from the ATM machine funds, and $20,000 from the creation of a false mortgage by Sefo, and other defalcations
"The total loss suffered by the bank is unlikely to ever be known," said Mr Justice Ford.
Suspicions were aroused in Vava'u in the second half of 2003 when people noticed that "the ANZ girls were rich with money".
Sefo and Tu'ipulotu were convicted in October 2004 on charges including falsification of accounts and were sentenced to six years and five years imprisonment respectively. The last 12 months of the sentence in each case was suspended for two years from the date of their release from prison.
The applicants had appealed against both conviction and sentence. They had made applications to be released on bail pending the hearing of their appeals by the Court of Appeal in July 2005.
A third bank employee, Siniola Leleifi who was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to two years imprisonment with the final 12 months suspended for two years, had not appealed.