Rameez Hamid v. Her Majesty’s Advocate [2019] HCJAC 16

Note of appeal against sentence:- The appellant pled guilty on indictment at Glasgow Sheriff Court to a charge of embezzlement relating to the sum of £51,000 from his employer’s bank. On 17 May 2018, the sheriff sentenced him to 3 years imprisonment, discounted form 4 years on account of the plea of guilty being tendered at a first diet. The appellant appealed against the sentence imposed on the ground that it was excessive albeit it was accepted that a period of imprisonment was justified. The circumstances were that the appellant, along with others, played an integral role in obtaining customers’ personal details at the bank where he worked and embezzled the sum libelled from the customers’ bank accounts over a period of several months. The sentencing sheriff described the conduct as “a grave breach of trust” and stated that “no other method of dealing with the appellant was appropriate other than a custodial sentence.” On behalf of the appellant it was submitted that he was married with a young child, had no previous convictions, had a good employment history and had felt pressured into participating in the fraudulent scheme as a result of experiencing financial difficulties at the time. In addition, the appellant had taken steps to repay the sum embezzled by trying to sell his house and the sale was due to complete the week after the sentence was imposed by the sheriff, albeit the transaction had not yet completed but was likely to shortly. The Crown confirmed that in the event the sum embezzled was paid back to the bank they would abandon the confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. It was submitted on behalf of the appellant that insufficient weight had been attached to this aspect of the mitigation by the sentencing sheriff it being said in Farquhar v HMA [2018] HCJAC 56 that repayment of the full sum embezzled was an important consideration when it came to sentencing. It was further submitted on behalf of the appellant that, due to the date of the appeal hearing, the appellant had already served the equivalent of more than 13 months custodial sentence, and, as such, the court was invited to quash the sentence imposed and substitute a community payback order. Here the court considered that there were a number of factors which distinguished the present case from that of Farquhar, the present case being described as “a very serious offence”. The court did accept that the appellant had made genuine attempts to repay the sum embezzled, a factor which the sheriff ought to have given more mitigatory weight to. Here the court quashed the sentence imposed by the sheriff and reduced the headline sentence of 4 years imprisonment to 3 years and 6 months and, applying the same discount of one quarter, reduced the sentence to 32 months imprisonment.